Coming together

The truck piecers were quickly cut on the router. I first mocked them up to get a good idea of how the piece would look as it was assembled. I liked what I saw.

The bigger pieces were put together with PB Bond-240 glue (Coastal Enterprises) a one part glue that is misted with water to activate. The smaller pieces were assembled with a two part epoxy. Now I'll quickly shape everything with my air powered die grinder. Then we can get to sculpting with some Abracadabra Sculpting epoxy.

 It won't be long until we begin the painting process. Stay tuned...

-dan

Special delivery

The folks at Coastal Enterprises (Precision Board) needed a new display for the trade show coming soon. They had seen the latest article in SignCraft featuring the Kel-Mor dump truck and wanted something like that - only much smaller. I sent them a picture of a small sample sign I had done and they asked me to do a similar concept drawing.

The concept showed a small flatbed truck with Precision Board samples stacked on the back. We had an instant GO!

As I worked up the vectors for the piece I decided to make it a tandem truck. The first job was to create the ten wheels I needed. As a bonus I added the company name to the tire sidewalls.

The tires were a simple donut created by using the dome tool.

Next up were the wheel centers. After first creating a flat relief I dished these down using the dome tool once more.

The I created the rim edge as a separate flat relief.

The raised lettering was the next order of business, created by modifying the tire relief by ADDING TO.

Then I created a zero height relief and merged highest all of the pieces to this relief.

I then added the wheel center using the dome tool.

The wheel slots were created as zero height reliefs and then MERGED LOWEST to the wheel assembly.

The truck vectors were then designed around the wheels to get the proportion correct. I used these vectors to build the reliefs and to cut out the many pieces of Precision Board we would need for the assembly. I then sent the files to the MultiCam and in short order we had all of the pieces we would need for this project.

In the next day or so I'll be gluing it all together. Then the hand work can begin. Stay tuned...

-dan

More lawn signs

Three more contractor signs are in progress for in front of the new house. The Marr-Tech sign is now glued up over the welded steel frame as is the Turner Closets sign. Boughen Contracting sign is the final stages of paint. It will be ready to go out the door tomorrow.

Amazingly, we have now done more than a dozen of these small signs to advertise our various contractors involvement in our house project. They will remain on our front lawn in front of the house until the end of summer - when we start the landscaping.

-dan

Simple dimensional sign

We continue to build dimensional signs for the contractors that are working on our house. Today it was time to start on the cabinet maker's sign. As many times as we build this kind of relatively simple sign there are always a few twists to keep things interesting.

I did the lettering in Illustrator and then built the logo and sign around them. Since the woodgrain bitmap would be applied as four separate rectangular areasI built the panel vectors as well. We would use these as masks for the bitmap.

I first built a flat relief 0.5" thick.

 Then I imported the sandblasted woodgrain bitmap from TEXTURE MAGIC DVD, enlarged and positioned it and applied it with a value of 0.15"

 Next up was the border reliefs around the letters and logo. These were built as flat relief 0.7" high, just enough to clear the woodgrain.

The letter borders were then merged highest with the background.

Lastly te ;etters and logos were added by modifying the base relief using the vectors as a mask.

The file was tool pathed with a 3/8 ball nose bit as a rough pass at 50% overlap. A 1/8" ball nose bit was used for the final tool path set with an 80% overlap. The file was then sent to the MultiCam to be routed from a piece of 1" thick 30 lb Precision Board. Here's a picture of the sign face on the router just as the 1/8" ball nose bit pass was started.

I'll be posting more pictures of this sign as it goes together.

-dan

Bridge build - part one

Routing the four, large, detailed panels from 1" thick precision Board took a long while - almost fifty hours in total. The panels turned out wonderful!

As good as the panels looked when we routed them, they looked even better as we installed them.

 In the next days the many details on the underside of the bridge will come together. I used the MultiCm to cut a bunch of pieces that will be installed tomorrow. The large crown moldings will be part of that work. Stay tuned...

-dan

One of a kind bridge

Before the large crown molding can go up around the living/dining room area we have to finish off the sides of the bridge that goes over the same area. I've been working on countless ideas for the bridge since well before we even started construction on the house. I've filled many pages of my sketchbook with these ideas but nothing clicked... until a couple of days ago.

I built a rough version of the file in Illustrator and then imported the file to EnRoute Pro.

The rough vectors needed a fair amount of reworking and tweaking. I only worked on one half of the bridge vectors, then deleted the roughs and duplicated and flipped the finals to form both sides of the bridge.

The scrolls would be raised to match the border and the background would feature the same butterflies as the panels on the window trim. Those areas are shown in grey.

The first step was to create a flat relief. Since the files were to be routed from 1" thick Precision Board with three layers of butterflies

I then arranged the butterflies for the background. I would go through them three times selecting every third butterfly. They were made into reliefs of three different heights and then merged highest with the background.

The file was tool pathed in two passes - a rough using a 3/8" ball nose bit with a 50% overlap and then a final pass using a 1/8" ball nose bit with an 80% overlap.

A final offset path was programmed to cut the piece out using a 3/8" cutter.

-dan

More fancy

The giant crown molding production continued today and will for a few days yet. Today we routed the first of the rounded crown moldings that will top the living and dining room windows. I had to work with the material I had in stock and so they will be done in segments and joined , most likely up on the wall. Like the straight pieces routed yesterday they were done in two three inch thick layers. The tape measure beside them gives a better idea of scale. These things are large!

I'll also cut a backer board from 1" thick MDF that will go on first, building up the moldings even more. I can hardly wait to see them up! Stay tuned...

-dan