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

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Texturing the scroll

Each time I post a routed scroll I get a couple of folks asking why I didn't program the file and router to do it all with the machine. While I certainly could and sometimes do the answer is I love the look of hand done sculpture. Residual tool marks and texture are best done by hand for it provides a look that is hard to duplicate by any other way. The second reason is I love to do it and sometimes I can do it faster by hand than I could program it and let the machine do the work.

The CNC does a fabulous job with the lettering, removing the bulk of material and shaping the pieces of the scroll. It was a simple matter to glue the ends to the center piece and then use my die grinder to add some simple texture While I was at it I roughed up the edges and added some small cracks to the scroll. Now we do the paint to make it look it's age.



It's going to look great on the brick wall at the back of the stage.

-dan