Ready to go!

This afternoon I received word the truck would arrive first thing tomorrow morning. It was time to move the sign out onto the parking lot in readiness. It was a simple matter of rolling it out the door on the dolly we had built it on and then using the forklift transfer it onto its legs. tomorrow it will load in a minute or two when the truck gets here.

I couldn't resist one last picture out in the parking lot as it got dark this afternoon. The plain background of the neighbor's shop really showed off the sign to it's best advantage.

As soon as the sign was out the door it was time for a shop cleanup. Other projects await. It is on to the next...

-dan

The sun shines!

Today our LED lighting arrived from Heico Lighting. The LED lights they manufacture are unlike anything I've ever seen before. They use a contactless technology, meaning there are no wires to hook up or solder. It is a simple matter of slipping a wire through the lighting modules. It does this through electromagnetic induction.. The only connection necessary is at the transformer.

To see an video I made (in 2010) of how easy the HEICO LED lights hook up go here.  And here's the piece as it looked finished.

Today our LED lighting arrived from Heico Lighting. The LED lights they manufacture are unlike anything I've ever seen before. They use a contactless technology, meaning there are no wires to hook up or solder. It is a simple matter of slipping a wire through the lighting modules. It does this through electromagnetic induction.. The only connection necessary is at the transformer.

To see an video I made (in 2010) of how easy the HEICO LED lights hook up go here.  And here's the piece as it looked finished.

-dan

Down to the short strokes (of paint)

The Sunshine Homes sign has been dominating our shop space for quite some time. We've walked and worked around it since fabrication began. Rebecca painted the rock work with blends of grey and back and then we added two colors of speckles to make it look like granite. We did that using an undercoat gun which works extremely well. The key is to use low air pressure - about 25 lbs. Today we are doing the last of the painting process, the grout lines and small touch-ups. Sarah and Hailey did that work today. I didn't get a shot of Hailey but grabbed these of Sarah as she squeezed into the top to do the tricky work there.

All that is left now is to install the LED lighting and then move the sign out to the parking lot in readiness for loading on the truck. As soon as the LED's arrive I'll document that process and then the sign will be on the way at last.

-dan

Splash of color

Since the last post about the Sunshine Homes sign we've made great progress. The last of the welding was finished and the diamond mesh was all tied to the frame. The sign was looking pretty big and took a lot of real estate in the shop by this time. It was a long walk around it to get from one side of the work space to the other.

Troweling on the fiberglass-reinforced-concrete and then carving it meant we were in for a long day.  The thing about sculpting concrete is that once you begin you have to go until you are done. Concrete waits for no one.

Today, while he concrete began to cure we began painting the top routed portions of the sign that were routed from 30 lb Precision Board. The sign sure brightened up in a hurry.

We'll be working on the top portion of the sign ver the next few days, adding more base coats and then final blended coats of paint to make the sun really pop. Lastly, we'll add the paint to the rock work.

-dan

The sun is up!

Today was a busy day as I textured up the letters and sun and welded everything securely in place. The top parts of the sign are now ready for paint.

Now that the routed parts are in place I can finish the welding and we can add all of the galvanized mesh. Once that is in place we can begin sculpting the fiberglass reinforced concrete rock work. The sign is quickly coming together.

-dan

The sun is almost up

While the MultiCam was whittling the sun I was welding the finished letters onto the sign base.  The sign started to look pretty massive in the shop.

The sun and background rays were laminated together in three layers. I used Coastal Enterprises PB BOND-240 glue. It is a one part glue that is activated with a mist of water.

Tomorrow I'll go over every square inch of the last glued letters and the sun, preparing them for paint before mounting them to the sign base as well. I'll be posting pictures so stay tuned...

-dan

Making the sun shine

The giant sun for the Sunshine Homes sign was the next order of business. I created the vectors in EnRoute. The rectangle on the bottom will be used to cut off the round sun.

I used the dome tool and selected the constant height function. Since I would route the piece from a three inch thick Precision Board I entered a value of 2.6"  I would tweak it just under the final dimension of 3" (top surface of piece) at the last minute.

The rectangle was made into a relief of zero height.

Then I opened the merge function. I selected the circle first, then followed the prompts to merge LOWEST.

To get rid of the unwanted pieces of the relief I used the slice function, effectively slicing the bottom of the relief off.

As EnRoute does this it leaves the original relief intact. I selected this one and moved it off to the side.

The sun rays were cut in two layers with slots cut in one of the layers for a welded steel frame. The three layers would be laminated together.

-dan

First set glued

I had great plans to glue up a set of letters first thing in the morning using every available clamp I had. Then this afternoon I could remove the clamps and get a second set glued up. Yeah, right. Life isn't alway like that. At least not my life.


I would use Coastal Enterprises PB BOND-240 glue. It is similar to Gorilla glue, a one-part glue activated with a spritz of water but does not bubble up or expand as much making for a neater job.

I did manage to get the first set glued and clamped up but not until after supper.  :)

Tomorrow I'll remove this set of letters from the clamps, finish them off, weld them onto the sign and then start in on another six or seven letters. Stay tuned...

-dan

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

More Sunshine

The Sunshine Homes sign is coming along nicely. Today I sourced a 12" x 12" x 4" waterproof electrical box to house the transformer for the low voltage LED wiring. It was fastened to the back of the sign frame. Then I started welding up the pencil rod frame to which we will attach the galvanized lath and then sculpt the fiberglass reinforced concrete rock work. I welded up a grid with the bars spaced about four inches apart - plenty strong for this project. It is all braced back to the heavy structural frame.

It is my hope that I will be able to create the routing files for the lettering tomorrow. Then I'll glue them up over some heavy rods which will permanently hold them in place on top of the sign. 

Stay tuned...

-dan

A little sunshine!

With the house now at lockup stage at long last it is time to get busy in the shop once more. We have plenty of cool projects waiting for us.

One of our projects is for a home prefabricator in Alberta. The preliminary design was hand drawn on my computer using PhotoShop and my digital drawing pad.

Once the design was approved we put measurements to paper and everything was submitted to the local authorities for permits. This seemed to take a long time but eventually we got through that process.

The sign will be built entirely in our shop, loaded onto a truck to move it to the site which is about a thousand miles distant. They will unload it and place it onto steel pilings and then weld it into place.  A sturdy welded steel frame was the first order of business. Everything else will come off of this. If you look at the picture closely you can see the stubby legs with the half inch thick steel plates under them. These will be securely welded to three pilings which will provide the support for the sign and make sure the frost does't move things around.

In the next week or so I'll be welding up the pencil rod sub structure for the sculpted rock work. I'll also be creating the routing files for the sun and the lettering which will be routed from 30lb Precision Board. I'll be using Heico LED lights and surface lighting on this project as well to make it highly visible at night.

Stay tuned...

-dan