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

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Viking delight

Our next big project looks to be a fun one. We've been asked to build two forty-foot long viking ships which will go to Dubai. It's a challenge as they will have to be built in sections to fit inside shipping containers. And the assembly has to be simple enough for someone else to do the install. Our job will end when the pieces are loaded into the truck on our property.

We are working with other vendors and all of the pieces need to fit together seamlessly. To make the job easier we decided to first built a scale half model of the ship. Everything is more easily worked out at this scale, which makes the real build a whole lot easier.

To make the model in perfect scale the platform was first designed in EnRoute. Then the steel plate ship deck was cut on the MultiCam plasma cutter. The profile of the keel was cut from Precision Board and the model was assembled and a final shape was hand sculpted. Then we applied a thin coat of Abracadabra Sculpting epoxy and all the the details were carved in before it set. As usual base colours were applied and then a series of glazes to make it all come alive.

We finished the model about two hours before the critical client meeting and it went extremely well.
Now we are on to the real thing at full size.