Fishing boat relief

I built this little fishing boart quite some time ago but decided to revisit it when I was recently teaching a workshop. It's a complex but not too difficult a build which is fascinating. The first time I built these reliefs I was pretty new to EnRoute and the MultiCam. That gave me an appreciation for the feelings I knew my students would have.

The little boat would later be incorporated into a sign sample which still hangs proudly on our shop.

As with all EnRoute files it started with vectors. I drew them all out in the program. The large egg shape was not part of the ship but would be used as a mask to define the rounded hull shape.

I started with the hull of the little boat by creating a flat relief that was 0.2" tall.

I then built the upper trim rails as separate reliefs that were 0.35" tall. 

Because the rail reliefs poked out beyond the hull relief I could then select them and the hull and combine them together. Next up was the tire that west coast fishermen tie to the side of their boat to protect the woodwork when they come in to the dock. This was built as a domed relief with a base of 0.5"

This tire shaped relief was then MERGED HIGHEST with the boat hull.

Then came the magic part. We used the giant egg shape as a mask to define the dome shape of the hull. It worked perfectly as I had remembered.

I checked the bottom and front view to be sure, but things looked pretty good already.

Next up was the keel and rudder of the boat. These were done as flat reliefs 0.2" thick.

The propeller shaft and rudder straps were created as separate 0.35" high flat reliefs.

These reliefs were then combined with the keep and rudder reliefs.

Next up were the tackle boxes on the front and rear decks of the little ship. These were created as 1" tall flat reliefs.

The lids were created as separate flat reliefs that were 1.2" tall.

The respective and box were selected as pairs and then combined. I then selected the hull of the ship, the tackle boxed and combined them to form one relief.

Next time we get to creating the files for the cab of the fishing boat using the revolve tool. Stay tuned...

Buster gets some paint

Im my last post about the Could Buster sign I had finished the sculpt and he was waiting for paint. As with many f our signs we started with a cot of Coastal Enterprises FSC-88 WB primer. It's a heavy bodied water base primer that is sandal. Only our intention is not to smooth things out but instead add even more texture. This paint is the perfect ticket for that task. We brush it on, purposely leaving brush stroked behind. Later when we do the glazing those brush strokes make that task easier. Hand brushing our primer and paints gives our signs a definite hand crafted character. That adds value.

We started the painting process with three base coats of solid colour. We use premium acrylic house paint. We allow the paint to dry thoroughly between coats and a large industrial fan speeds up this process. With the paint dry it is time for the glazes. We start with the lightest colour, in this case a light tan. The glaze is brushed on and then wiped off, leaving it in the crevices and ridges. 

The next coloured glaze would be a dark brown and would go over the 'wooden' gun stock as well as the porcupine. This meant we had to brush the base colour on the gunstock before the next glaze. 

By doing things in a specific order it cuts down on the time for cutting the edges of the painted areas.

Becke also painted the base colours on the barrel of the gun, eyeballs and nose of the little creature.

She then worked quickly over the entire surface, always keeping a wet line in her glaze and wiping it off before it dried.

The back of the porcupine received the same treatment as the front. Not many people will look here but if they do it is finished as good as the front.

Next the blues of the bottom will get their final coats and then the lettering is last. I'll show the finished sign next time. Stay tuned...

Assembly of the Hazelnut Inn main sign - part one

Once the glue was dry it was time to switch to hand work on the sign. We started by going over the edges and backs of the lettering portion of the sign with our die grinder. First I evened out the layers and got rid of the glue that always squirts out. Then I purposely added a bit of texture making the sign like it was hand fabricated. This adds a whole lot of value without adding a great deal of time.

The concave background was routed from 4" thick Precision Board. It was a deep cutting file, coming within a half inch of the bottom.

We mocked up the sign onto the welded steel frame and did a little adjusting as necessary to make it look good visually. The biggest change was to drop the oval a little from our original design.

Once we were happy we marked reference points and then disassembled so we could spread the glue.

We then lifted the pieces into place.

We then double checked the alignment before clamping and screwing the pieces together. The lettering is slid into position in the steel structure. This way we can remove it for painting and building the base plus we can make further adjustments to the width as we go.

Hazelnut inn - part three

The center portion of the sign would be a giant oval but we didn't need the whole thing as the bottom would be tucked into a themed base and the top would be in the canopy of the tree. By cutting these off we would save a lot of Precision Board, an important consideration as this portion of the sign would be a whopping fourteen inches thick. 

The centre oval would be a concave dome and routed from 4" thick precision Board. Because we were cutting the top and bottom off the oval we could get both pieces out of the same sheet. 

We would build the reliefs in four pieces. First we created a four inch flat relief, the thickness of our board.

We then hollowed out the middle of the flat relief using the dome tool and the subtract command.

we added texture to the inside dome in two ways. The first was done using a custom made bitmap.

To add a subtle randomness to the texture Peter used a parametric texture called 'cellular texture.'

It ended up that we would cut much of it off but Peter added a base to the sign. This was done as a separate relief.

  He then created a lower height relief around the oval which would effectively cut the shape out in a fashion. Our bit was only 2.5" long so it wouldn't cut all the way through but it would give us a guideline and a head start.

We then merged the pieces to the outside 'bowl' one at a time using the replace command. (Please not that merge highest is shown in the picture below. The Replace command s the one on the fair right.

   

The outside of the oval would have another layer added. This would be undercut so we could place a ring of LED lights there to create a glow on the domed background behind the tree. This would be routed upside down. We first created a relief that was 2" thick.

This relief was then modified by using the subtract command.

Lastly we created a 2" filler layer. This was done as a simple offset cut file. We cut this in sections which would allow for the welded structural steel frame to be put inside the outer layers.

Hazelnut Inn main sign - part two

With the design for the Hazelnut Inn finally in hand we set to work in EnRoute. I had done the design using Adobe Photoshop using my iPad as an interface. I based the lettering on an actual font but modified it a fair amount. Now that needed to be done using vectors. So Peter imported the jpg image of the sign and tweaked the lettering vectors using the image as reference.

Since we were going to add a fairly high bevel to the letters we knew they would be very thin and fragile. To change that we needed to thicken up the tapered ends of the letters. To do this Peter first did an inside offset of .05" .

He then did an offset using the rounded selection. This made the letter ends rounded instead of pointed and therefore much stronger when it was routed.

Hw then created a second offset around the letters to create a shaped background.

Peter started with the lettering outline background. To add just a little more interest he used the bevel tool but limited the height of the relief. This created a bevel around the edge of the relief.

The lettering was created using the bevel tool with a base (vertical rise on the sides of the letters) before the bevel)

As always we check the 3D view to make sure we achieved the results that we were looking for.

Lastly Peter applied a texture to the letters. He used a parametric texture called cellar texture and tweaked the parameters to suit the sign.

Because of he thin portions of the letters we were a little concerned with the fragile nature of the sign. But we knew the perfect solution. We had a sheet of 2" thick 48 lb Precision Board handy. Our routing speeds were the same as normal but the results were even more spectacular than normal. I love the denser version of Precision Board!

The sign looked great right off the router! 

As with many of our sign projects we opted for three layers. A welded steel 1"x1" tube frame was laminated into a pocket which had been routed into the centre layer of 1" thick Precision Board. A 33/4" sheet would be laminated to the back effectively encasing the step structure. 

Two legs protruded out of the back of the sign for mounting.

We glue our signs using Coastal Enterprises PB Bond 240 glue - a one part urethane glue which is activated by a spritz of water mist.