Generel font suggestions for carving?

[Spartan]

Hey there,

first, please excuse my english, i am german, but i am doing my very best ;-) If you don't understand something, just tell me, i will try to explain it better.

I would like to ask you for some generally good looking fonts for v-carving in wood-signs?


After some years of illness i am starting my hobby again and i thought about starting with some wooden signs for friends and family. I own a big, precise and stable router with vacuum-table and also software like aspire and sheetcam. I am experienced in milling and turning, but more on the engineering-side, not the creative-one I did some signs earlier, but just tinkering without real know-how.

I have been sitting in front of my font-viewer now for nearly 1h, but i can't decide for a font. And if i did, the font was very poor quality and needed much rework that quickly frustrates^^


So i'd like to ask you more experienced people here for some recommendations/suggestions for good-looking, free fonts for V-carving and "protruding writing" (where the letters are higher than the ground, don't know the correct word right now).
The fonts should ideally be a good-quality (nice, smooth borders), that i can start with (and don't become demotivated too fast as it's not that easy for me to concentrate sometimes).

I'd be very happy about some general suggestions!

Thank you very much in advance!

Best regards,

Marc

 

[Martin Denton]

Times Roman is always a good one for V Carving as the serifs look really good as they come to a point. Not sure which software you use but many of them have the ability to show a preview of how it will carve - We use artcam which definitely does...

 

[unclebun]

Many of the blackletter fonts look good v-carved, especially the Germanic ones, which tend to have more of the straight verticals. The classic Roman letters also look great, such as Trajan.

 

[Spartan]

Times New Roman... should have thought of this myself, i used it for years in Word 2003-2010^^
Also the blackletter/gothic-ones are beautiful for carvings, i am very pleased of that look.
And the Trajan-fonts are really cool, too. Very straight, clear and kind of a "easy-to-read-look", but still somehow special and unique. Modern and classic in one font.
Thank you very much for this good hints!

 

[astro8]

Goudy Old Style (bold) is another favourite.. I like to use 60° v-bit cutters.

Out of curiosity, what type of router do you have?

 

[Spartan]

Hello astro,

looks really nice and i bet it comes out great vcarved, but as i don't earn money with this i will look for free alternatives ;-)

My router is mainly self-built. I got a great price for the just the base and axes, so i built the whole rest of it myself. Took some years, but i'm very happy with it!
Weight is about 1,5tons, it's working-area is 63"x31,5"x10" and the full area is covered with a massive vacuum-table. 6kw-spindle with 24krpm and ATC.
Accuracy is under 2/1000"! You see, i'm very proud of it^^

And still yes, i am not earning any money with it. That's the problem with hobbies you love, they grow and grow and then you get caught by your wife while having removed the stairs to get that beast downstairs to your workshop

 

[TimToad]

I think Optima is a really nice choice.