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 with what I saw 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 and LOTS of hands-on practice I quickly found out that my MultiCam router was capable of just about anything imaginable.This journal will chronicle that journey to date and continue each week with two or three entries as I continue to explore just what is possible with this wonderful tool... -dan

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Sign Magic Workshop samples - Part three

For one of the sample projects the students start with a three dimensional leaf routed from 30 lb Precision Board. I started by drawing a leaf shape - minus the stem. Then I drew a line, bisecting the leaf roughly through the center of where the stem would be. Using the jigsaw tool I then selected each half of the leaf, after which I deleted my original lines.

Once I had the two halves of the leaf lined up I drew in the rest of the vectors for the ribs, stem and the letter 'B'.


 I also created a border vector which I created as a flat relief. This relief was then modified using the add to relief tool with the dome option selected for both the halves of the leaf.


The veins of the leaf were next again using the dome tool.

 

The stem of the leaf was built as a separate relief, floated into position vertically with the up/down arrows (in the front view) and then merged (highest) with the leaf relief.

I then added a mild texture to the relief (Splotches from my TEXTURE MAGIC collection). The outline border of the letter  'B' was built as a flat relief, floated into position vertically and then merged (highest) with the base relief.


Lastly a rounded top letter was created using the dome tool. I duplicated the file six times, tool pathed it in readiness to send to the MultiCam.



-dan