MULTICAM: Assembly of the Hazelnut Inn main sign

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

Monday, September 25, 2017

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.