One more time.

The horse's head turned out pretty fine. I filled in the missing pieces with sculpting epoxy and called my client as she had asked for a look before we got into paint. She loved what we had done but asked for some tweaks which would appeal to her husband as he would be the recipient of the piece at Christmas. On further discussion we decided that what was really needed was a change to a much more cartoon looking horse. The change was fine with me as the routed head could be removed and used on another piece for our display board. The scroll could be salvaged without difficulty.

After she left I broke out the tools and did just that. It came off cleanly with no damage to either piece. I used my jig saw to whip up a rough shape our of Precision Board and then mixed up some epoxy. My plan was to only rough out the new horse's head and finish the details the next day. But as always once I started I really got into it and was having way too much fun to stop. In only a couple of hours I had worked up a fun old nag. I snapped a couple of pictures and blasted them off to my client.

My client was delighted with the new horse as was I. It will now get it's solid base coats of paint and then the glazes will be layered on to finish the project. I'll post some pics when it is done.

-dan

Horsing around

 I could see as the sign routed that this was going to look pretty special when it was assembled. The details looked great! I pulled the pieces off the router table this morning and dusted them off before I started gluing them up.

Gluing the pieces together only took minutes. I used PB Bond 240 from Coastal Enterprises which is a single component glue activated with a simple spritz of water. I used screws instead of clamps as the pieces were so irregular in shape. The screws will come out later and the holes filled as I begin the sculpting process. As I sculpt I'll diminish the thoroughbred look and add a little more of the nag feel we are after on this project.

I'll also add the woodgrain to the slat ends at that time. While I could have easily programed the woodgrain into the ends, the reality is that it is just as easy to do it by hand with a die grinder. From here on in it will be all about hand work.

-dan

Dimensional pub sign

As Christmas quickly approaches its the time to make signs that will appear under trees Christmas morning. This client asked for a small pub sign for her husband. The budget mandated that we couldn't get too crazy but my client really wanted a dimensional sign. It would measure just over 4 feet wide and almost 24" tall. The horse's head would protrude from the sign. I first created the vectors in the appropriate scale. The barrel head would be created as a separate layer which will be glued on after routing. The horses head will be sliced and also glued back together after routing and then mounted to the sign.

The first item of business was to create the barrel head. Its a simple oval with a bitmap woodgrain applied. Then I created the stave ends by simply making them into 1.5" tall reliefs and then merging them to the barrelhead. A smaller oval was also raised to provide a mounting point for the horse's head.

The banner file was a pretty basic exercise. The layers of the banner were done at different heights, then merged together along with the oval for the barrel. I created a raised relief around the lettering and then the lettering was created as a bevelled relief. With the raggedy font it looks pretty cool with lots of texture.

I found a great looking horse's head in a STL file at www.3dmodelclub.com It was only $30.00 to download. The detail was pretty good. I'll make the horse a little more like a nag as I detail it by hand later. With the budget allowed for this sign I knew I couldn't carve the horse from scratch. 

The file was sized by eye and then rotated to suit the sign. I then created a zero height block and merged lowest to cut the back of the horses head off nicely. Using the slice tools in EnRoute and a zero height relief I cut the bottom plate off the horse's head. Then I sliced it again to fit in two slices in a 1.5" sheet of Precision Board.

I didn't bother with the small pieces of mane as I would recreate this easier with my sculpting medium after assembly/ I created a copy of the two layers and flipped these for the back side of the horse. I then nested them for routing with the other pieces.

The file is on the MultiCam now and I'll post pictures as things progress.

-dan