Almost complete!

Back before Christmas we started this project. It's been coming along, slowed by the holidays some. Today Bec finished the bulk of the painting today with just a few details to go on the bees before we declare it done. I love how the cool colors of the letters pop against the warmer colors of the background. this sign should work well for our client. It's hard to see in this picture but it is double sided. it stands just a hair over eight feet tall in total. With all the various components, this project proved to be a little more difficult than I imagined it would be but we are very pleased with the result.

The 'wood' post is sculpting epoxy over a welded steel structure. The lettering and honeycomb were routed from 30 lb Precision board. The colored, translucent panels are vinyl covered Lexan. If you want to see the rest of the posts in this series just go to the archives on the right and click on 'Glass Hive Signs'.

-dan

Back from the holidays...

 I hope everyone had a great Christmas with those they love. Here we had a relatively quiet, small Christmas this year with only twelve family and friends around the table. It was a good time.

Just before Christmas we finished the Nag's Head sign. Our customer was delighted with the result.

Yesterday we got back into the shop once more and began getting things rolling once more on projects which had lain idle for a few days. The Glass Hive Studio sign is the furthest along. I glued the front and back sides of the sign together yesterday with vinyl covered Lexan sandwiched in between.  Some steel rods were also laminated inside the frame which I would weld to the structure as we proceeded. This morning I used my trusty air powered die grinder to sculpt the edges of the sign.

Then I bent a piece of tubing to shape and welded it to the sign supports. This piece was then inserted into the sign support base, leveled and welded securely. Over the next couple of days we'll complete the sculpting with the epoxy and then jump into final paint. As you can see in the pictures we had pre-painted the areas of the sign that were to be in contact with the Lexan to make things easier.

-dan

A honey of a sign

A number of weeks ago a client approached me about creating a new sign for their home businesses. He was a bee keeper and she a glass artist. Their business was called the Glass Hive Studio. They had a logo but it needed a rework to make it into a head turner sign. The client loved my first design and didn't change a thing. Then it was on to getting the necessary permissions which didn't prove to be too onerous.

Once approvals and the deposit were in hand we set to work. The vector file was largely done in Illustrator with the outlines and borders done in EnRoute Pro.  

The reliefs were generated separately and tweaked to suit then merged together. The lettering was built as a separate layer. The file will be routed separately, painted and then glued together.  A second set will be routed for the back side of the sign.

The lettering was built in a bevelled style on a slight arc. 

Then it was on to the router.  The file was to be routed from 30 lb Precision Board as is our custom. The entire sign fit within a full 4' x 8' sheet of material.

While the MultiCam worked I set about fabricating the lower steel structure for the frame. The cutting and welding of the frame only took a few minutes. Once the sign is routed I will bend a piece of 1.5" x 1.5" square tubing and weld it onto the top, wrapping around the sign at the appropriate radius. It is easier to do it with the sign present than to construct scale drawings and do the math.

Then as Sarah mixed the sculpting epoxy I wrapped and tied the expanded lath around the welded steel pencil rod, forming the outer layer of the trunk. A rough coat of sculpting epoxy was quickly put in place. In the next days I'll sculpt a detailed coat to form the bark on the tree.

In about half a day we made good progress on the dimensional sign. The router continues to run, but it's time to head in for supper.

Stay tuned...

-dan