WELCOME!

It is hard to believe that it was almost ten 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 of these machines - but I just knew it could do fantastic stuff.

Along with the CNC router I discovered the wonderful material called Precision Board and the glues, primers and other companion products they offer. Since then we have gone through many tons of the material using it in most signs and projects we tackle. This journal will chronicle our many adventures both past, present and future. I'll talk from the perspective of someone who pushes these products to the creative limit on a daily basis. I'll be adding to the stories two or three times each week. -dan

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Routing two piece letters


The Sunshine Homes lettering was relatively simple. I would route them in two layers with a half round groove routed in the middle so a steel rod frame could be laminated into the center of each letter with rods  protruding from the bottom to weld into he sign base. As usual we started with the vectors.


Into the center of each letter I positioned a 3/4" wide vector. By routing a half round slot into the back the 5'8" rod would drop between the layers.



The letters were positioned on a 4' x 8' panel, then duplicated and flipped to create the tops.



The files were routed from 30 lb Precision Board in two passes. The centers were done as a fill using a 3/* ball nose bit and with an 80% overlap. They were then cut out using a 3/8" cutter.


I then cut lengths of 5'8" bars to fit in the slots I had routed into the letters. I most likely could have used lighter rods but we had plenty of these shorts left over from building our fence.



The short rod segments were then welded together while still in the letter pockets. I then pulled the frames and welded the back sides.




Once the steel sections were all welded up and cooled they were placed back in the letters.  The top sides of the letters will now be glued into place on top.



Stay tuned to se how it will all fit together.

-dan