WELCOME!


It is hard to believe that it was only seven years ago I witnessed a CNC router in action for the very first time. I was fascinated and simply had to have one! Although I had been in the creative end of the three dimensional sign business for most of my life I didn't really know what I would do with one - but I just knew it could do fantastic stuff.

Through extensive research I quickly found out that with the relative simplicity of EnRoute, CNC routers were capable of just about anything imaginable. This journal will chronicle that journey to date and continue each week with two or three entries as we continue to explore just what is possible with this wonderful software... -dan

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Last of the series.

Since the Sign Magic Workshop begins tomorrow morning bright and early I am posting the last of this series of name plaques today.

Scott works in sales at MultiCam Western Canada so I decided his name plaque should reflect the machines he sells. Since his office is in the MultiCam office we themed a while back I drew a lot of visual ideas from that project. ( To see the photos of that project go to the right sidebar and under labels/MultiCam done you will find pictures. )

I used a very basic font and then built a gear to substitute for the 'O' A linear gear serves as the underline. The vectors were created inside EnRoute.


First off was a basic flat relief as shown. 


Since I wanted the whole thing to have a similar texture, making the gears look well used I assed a simple and subtle texture to the entire piece. This bitmap is from the TEXTURE MAGIC collection and is called splotches 1.  It gives a slightly different texture as the normal one as it is an inverted version.


The letters and gears were all raised the same amount as flat modifications to the original relief.


Then I modified the original relief one last time using the dome tool to create the rivets.


As quick as that the project was ready to tool path and then send to the MultiCam.


I didn't get a shot of the plaque on or after it got off the router but I grabbed one tonight to it anted and ready to go.


Tomorrow I'll try and grab some shots of a few more of  the name plaques finished.

-dan