Stained Glass Design Templates. Lead & Cut Lines. One Line on Top of Another? Double Line?

[Glasshock]

Hi gang,

I'm new here and a traditional Stained Glass Artist. I'm just adopting this software, rather than drawing my designs by hand. 

Love it and just feeling my way through. I have one key question...

My designs are simply lines and shapes, with colour renderings once I get the glass stock catalogue in order.

Forgive me if you know how stained glass is built but for those who don't, it comprises of glass and lead soldered around the glass. The drawing is the first step and it shows typically 2# lines, one on top of each other. The lead is an H-section on it's side and the glass slides into each side. So, the drawing gives you two elements, a 6 or 8 mm line (lead line) with a 2mm line centered on top of that 6 or 8mm line. (heart of the lead and your glass cut-line.

I know I can simply pinpoint which lines use which leads and then layer, but is there a way of easily setting a line to show the 2mm line in black with the 6m or whichever thickness of lead line underneath in grey? 

Each particular design will be filed away as a template and hold the appropriate settings 6mm lead, 10mm etc. Please note, the heart of the lead, the other line, is always 2mm.

Please note, I'm a blithering idiot so you'll need to explain with that in mind. 

Thanks in advance all for the assistance and for the accumulation of some great historical information.

Cheers.

Glasshock.

[Glasshock]

Hey guy's,

Thought I'd share an image to show you what I'm attempting to explain. See the thicker border line. This is simply a 2mm heart of lead line dropped onto a 12mm line. 

I'm looking to have this double line automated for all lines and shapes unless I choose to alter it.

Thank you all!

[Old Bruce]

37 minutes ago, Glasshock said:

I know I can simply pinpoint which lines use which leads and then layer, but is there a way of easily setting a line to show the 2mm line in black with the 6m or whichever thickness of lead line underneath in grey? 

Use the Appearance pane in Affinity Designer. You can apply two strokes to the shapes. One being 2 mm thick and the other being either 6 or 8 mm. Be aware that the lines will be centred on the shape.

[Glasshock]

Mr. Bruce, 

Thank you for the swift response...

Just on with this now and I'm having two issues.

1. I can't seem to change the color of the lines allowing me to see both. The menu 'lighter or darker' colors don't seem to do anything.

2. When I draw a line or shape it reverts back to the default.

Can you assist a little further please?

Thank you again.

 

[PixelPest]

Did you accidentally have "Grey8/16" as your document "Colour Format"? Check in Document Setup...

[Glasshock]

Hey PP,

Thanks. See attached.

[Old Bruce]

16 minutes ago, Glasshock said:

1. I can't seem to change the color of the lines allowing me to see both. The menu 'lighter or darker' colors don't seem to do anything.

 

This could be due to the Thick line being at the top of the appearance panel, thus covering up the Thin line underneath it. I use the colour panel to assign colours to the strokes, I don't know what the Lighter or Darker colours refers to.

[PixelPest]

And here?

[Glasshock]

Hey, thanks to those that helped. I'm almost there.

Colors just needed me to understand how to assign for each stroke but I'm still dumbfounded that every time I draw a new line or shape, it reverts to default, losing my new settings. I can only get the stroke settings back when I click on my last shape or line.

With a clean sheet in front of me, the ability to change the strokes in appearance is greyed out so you have to draw a shape first, then modify it.

There must be something in default that I'm missing as it can't be that you need to add strokes in for every line you draw shurely?

Any further help much appreciated. I'm almost there.

[Callum]

31 minutes ago, Glasshock said:

Hey, thanks to those that helped. I'm almost there.

Colors just needed me to understand how to assign for each stroke but I'm still dumbfounded that every time I draw a new line or shape, it reverts to default, losing my new settings. I can only get the stroke settings back when I click on my last shape or line.

With a clean sheet in front of me, the ability to change the strokes in appearance is greyed out so you have to draw a shape first, then modify it.

There must be something in default that I'm missing as it can't be that you need to add strokes in for every line you draw shurely?

Any further help much appreciated. I'm almost there.

Hi GlassShock,

There is no way to set this to be the default behaviour I'm afraid. However you could right click one of your existing lines with multiple strokes applied and then hit Create Style. Now whenever you create a new document / line all you need to do is apply your style from the styles panel to the lines as they are made.

Thanks
C

[Glasshock]

Great stuff Callum, that works well...

Thanks again all!