Dealing with those pesky glue seams and making my signs look hand carved.

Every sign maker I know struggles with glue seams when they use multiple layers. It means instant work to get everything smooth and even. We use Coastal Enterprises PB Bond-240 - a one part bonding adhesive. It doesn't bubble up as much as Gorilla glue but there is still a glue line when we are done. I'd much rather have a little glue squish out than be short and have the joint fail later. Using epoxies will result in a very hard glue line which finishes differently than the HDU when you paint.

The obvious answer would be to route our signs from a single layer of board but that is seldom practical. It can waste a whole lot more material and it would of course be impossible to laminate in structural steel or mounting hardware into the sign.

We take a different route. First off - I really dislike sanding. While Precision Board (or other HDUs) sand up in a hurry making things perfectly smooth I believe this makes our signs look like they came out of a mold or were machine made. I LOVE my MultiCam but I don't want my signs to look like a machine made them. I want them to look hand made. We do that by purposely introducing TEXTURE. My favorite hand tool is my die grinder. It makes the hand work effortless and FAST! I keep two grinders handy with a large bit and a smaller one. Having two means I don't have to slow down much when I need to switch tools. Changing bits takes time. I also keep a new spare one tucked away in case one of these packs it in which happens occasionally. I don't oil my die grinders - which obviously shortens their life substantially. I found that the oil sprays out landing on the work... which means a paint failure down the road. The die grinders are much less expensive than my signs or the labor to produce them. So I run them dry.

When I work on the edges of my signs I first whip off the glue lines and even up the layers if things aren't quite lined up. The next step is to do any shaping that didn't happen on the router. In this case this was the rounded ends of the scroll and the fold line underneath. I could have easily programmed these shapes in EnRoute but it was simply faster and easier to do it by hand (for me). Once the glue lines were gone and the shaping was done I then quickly went over all the edges and other areas which needed texture. This included the face of the scroll. The sign instantly looked like I had spent hours and hours hand carving it. MAGIC!

Next I'll add a little MORE subtle texture in key areas like the lettering with the primer...

-dan

A quickie

Last week we got a little sign that most likely was pretty typical for most shops. I should really have passed on the project as we were slammed getting ready for an upcoming trade show as well as our regular work already in progress. Our client needed a sign in only four days for a retirement present for a colleague. The budget was adequate for the size they needed. He was the go-to-guy but needed approval of everyone who was contributing. It could have been a committee nightmare but they were in a hurry and he promised to make my job easy. I stressed the need for instant approvals if we were to meet his deadline. I whipped up the artwork and emailed it to him within the hour. They approved it as is - with the exception of two punctuation corrections... no big deal.

Since I had created the vectors for the proposal my design work was almost done. I imported the vectors into EnRoute, created two more apostrophes and adjusted things as needed. Then I created the reliefs for the two background pieces and lettering as separate elements. I added textures using two examples from my bitmap collection, then 'floated' everything into place so it would fit onto a 1" thick Precision Board HDU. Then I merged everything together and tool pathed the file using a 3/8" bit to rough cut and a 1/8" ball nose bit for a final pass. The back side (second piece) was fully textured but without lettering.

The two center pieces were simple cutouts. While the MultiCam worked I welded up a simple steel framework with two eye bolts for hanging the sign.

I marked the pieces by tracing the welded steel and then cut a groove in the back of the center pieces to accept this steel frame.

Once the glue was dry it was time to work some magic.

I'll be posting the finishing steps the next time...

-dan

A little at a time...

The last week has gone by in a blur as we struggled to meet our commitments and also prepared for a local trade show. Even so I did find time to squeeze in some time on the Vedder Mountain Grille sign. Once the clamps came off it was time to do the hand work. Grinding off the glue lines was the first order of business. While I was at it I added a mild texture to the edges with my die grinder. It went pretty quick - even for a sign of this size. Then I tackled the dimensional pictorial. THe background mountain was simple vertical strokes with the whirling tool. Precision Board disappears in a hurry with the right tool.

Then it was time for a little sculpting using an epoxy medium. I used this to create the foreground trees on the lower mountain and the rows of plants in the field. Those didn't take long. At this stage the pictorial is pretty bland but it will come alive as the paint goes on.

Stay tuned...

From design to assembly in one day

As always the project started in my sketch book and quickly went to EnRoute. The file was first built as a vector file. Some bits of the initial design was done in Illustrator - specifically the lettering. I then imported this work into EnRoute and brought everything up to scale. For this project I was to route the sign in 8 layers - four for each side of the sign. Building the sign in this fashion would give me the double sided 3D sign I wanted while minimizing the hand carving I would need to do. The top two drawings below are the center sections with the basic mountain cut out layers. EnRoute made things easy. I also scaled the motorcycle and bracket vectors to the right scale. I printed these out then used the prints as a pattern for my plasma cut steel shapes. The lettering on the scroll piece was created as a bevelled incise file. The oval was a full blown 3D file with textures.

Each file was routed twice. The Vedder Mountain portion and the scroll were routed fro 1.5" 30 lb Precision Board. The balance of the files were routed from 1" material.

After the files had been routed I pressure washed them to get rid of all the dust, then set about fabricating the bracket and internal framework for the sign. I laid everything out marked it and then cut a groove in the two center boards to accommodate the framework. This was glued and clamped before the next step.

While things set up I welded up the sign post and cut the bracket pieces. While it would have been nice to use a CNC plasma cutter I had no trouble making the pieces by hand.

The center two sections of the sign were lifted into place and welded up permanently before I started final assembly of the project.

Things were progressing quickly. I have less than a day invested in the project so far - including design and machine time. In the next installment I'll be adding the other layers and begin hand carving at last.

Stay tuned...

-dan

All the tricks

Every once in a while we get a project that uses our whole bag of tricks. While not a massive project, our latest sign uses a wide variety of tools, methods and skills.

The sign is for a restaurant just a half block from our place. It's a new restaurant that serves great food! They hired another sign maker to make their signs and... to say it nicely, the signs they got from him would do until some permanent ones were designed and fabricated. These new signs would reflect the great food and service offered in side.

The name of the restaurant is 'Vedder Mountain Grille.' The new sign is to feature the very same mountain I admire out my studio window each day. We decided on a dimensional sign of course. They liked the idea of a scroll on the bottom and that worked out cool. They also asked for the sign to feature a motorcycle as the owner liked to bike on Vedder Mountain... hence the name. This element gave me some pause for it didn't really fit. I struggled with it until I tried it on the bracket instead of inside the sign. The owner loved the idea too.

The sign would be routed from multiple layers of Precision Board to maximize the usage of our in stock Precision Board HDU. The mountain would be hand carved and then a layer of epoxy would be sculpted to form the foreground trees and the fields in the front. The motorcycle and shwoosh would be plasma cut steel with the balance of the bracket being formed, welded steel. The painting would all be hand done and the sign would also feature some gold leaf as a finishing touch. All of it would be done in house.

This was going to be a fun project!

Stay tuned...

-dan

Ready for take off!

Once the sign was done I could hardly wait to drag it out into the sunshine to photograph. The 23K gold leaf letters absolutely sparkled, jumping to prominence as was right. In spite of being small in relation to the sign they instantly became the focal point. The natural light played on the textured surfaces of the sign, the shadows adding even more dimension.

The little red plane, complete with pilot roared through the center in dramatic fashion. The sign will be a great centerpiece in our trade show display. The back of the sign is just as fun, detailed and interesting. In this view you can better see the sturdy steel rod that holds the plane firmly in place.

The sign another great example of how EnRoute helped us craft a sign that would have taken many times longer than by hand. Even though it was largely made by a state of the art, automated CNC router it still looks very much hand crafted. Once again the MultiCam did the grunt work, saving the fun parts for me.

I could now cross one more of my 'one-of-these days projects' off my list. No worry though, I have plenty more of these type imaginative and fun projects still waiting patiently on that list. There are also a few more fun projects underway in the shop...

-dan

Laying down the sparkle...

Once the size has tacked up it's time to lay down some gold at last. It is amazingly easy. The gold is so thin and light it will blow around if there is a wind. Take a sheet of gold (still on the tissue paper) from the book and gently lay it into the size. Press it down, burnishing it by rubbing through the paper gently. Lift off the paper leaving the gold stuck to the sign. Move to a new section of the lettering and repeat.

The gold will be a little ragged and uneven but not to worry. We'll fix that in a hurry. Once you have finished a section take a large, very soft brush and go over the letters, gently knocking off the excess gold. The brush actually scratches the surface of the gold and these minute scratches make the gold catch the light and sparkle. The effect is dramatic and amazing. Tiny flakes of gold will fall like snow to the floor. I use a brush I picked up from a cosmetics counter as they are much less expensive than a real gilder's brush.

It didn't take long to go over all the letters. I put the gold on in the same order I had put the size on so the tack on the letters stayed the same all the way through.

Next installment I'll show the finished signs - sparking out in the sun...

-dan