Still “Frozen” this Christmas…

Once again we had the great fortune to work on the “Frozen” display at the Disney Store in Times Square. This was a lot of fun as usual and my daughter Mary got to meet Olaf in person!

The client gave us sketches of the Frozen Castle and our challenge was to make a display out of acrylic.

We came up with a few concepts and started building it half scale to work out the kinks.

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Once we had the design down it was time to build it full size which was about 8′ tall. Here is the main structure made out of gator foam. We cut grooves in the gator foam to allow us to glue the acrylic in place.

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Stop everything! Olaf has arrived. He’ll be part of the display so we need to get accurate measurements before we finalize everything.351Back to the display.  The 4″ gator gets wrapped with printed graphics. Here Rad is installing the vinyl but he may need a little help.

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So we put Olaf to work installing the some of the vinyl.

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Now we’re ready to connect the acrylic panels. First we cut the acrylic then apply printed translucent vinyl to the back side.  Then using UV curable glue we attach the returns to the side of each acrylic tower for depth.

 Brian works out the mechanics of the ornament spinners – these have to be lightweight and last throughout the season.  The first prototype is perfect and we’re ready to start building them.371

Meanwhile the whole crew Rad, Mark, Greg Holin and Eddie are super busy – printing, cutting and inserting the motors into the hanging signs. There are a lot of these! There are giant marquee signs and other cool accents all over the shop!

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We had Olaf cut some of the boards to make things go a little quicker. Luckily he’s wearing sneakers – he’s doing a lot of running around today.

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We’re almost there – time to clean up – Olaf is pretty good at this too.

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Olaf had a long day and needs a nap before we ship everything out.

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Here it is – after our client did there wonderful staging, accents and magic!  Great job everyone! Another fun project!

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Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.

Full 3D Dolphin Art Piece

We recently had a great opportunity to work with an artist client of ours.  His piece incorporated a  five foot long three dimensional dolphin. Of course we immediately said yes to the project and jumped right in.

We started by sourcing a 3D Model of the “perfect dolphin” for the job – the client reviewed all the options and once he settled on the final shape we began our work.

In the 3D model we removed the fins which will be cut separately and attached later.

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From the 3D model we created a relief for each slice, 2 slices per side. Our material will be 4″ thick 15lb Precision Board HDU. All of the design work  was done directly in Enroute Pro. 119

Now we’re ready to start cutting the HDU on our MultiCAM 3000 CNC. We start with a long 1/2″ Foam Bit on the rough pass to remove the excess material quickly.  Then move to a 3/8″ Ball End Mill for the finish pass.

123 137 152 156Once it’s all glued together we’ll sand the facets off for a smooth surface.

Now its time for the fins!

To cut the fins we decided to cut each fin out of 1 piece of foam. So we cut the first side – then reregistered the foam block on the table and cut the second side – giving us a seamless 3D part.

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Now its time to send all of these parts to the paint shop for some steel, finishing and painting.

Fist the steel frame needs to be welded and set inside the dolphin. This will give the piece a lot of strength and we can hide the support bracket that will bolt to the steel stand. photo

photo 1Once the welded frame is complete the dolphin can be screwed and glued together. Then the first coat of primer is sprayed.photo 5

All the holes will get filed and the crew will sand and sand and sand until perfect. The final paint and clear coats applied and the finish will look like glass. Here is the dolphin in all its glory at the gallery in Germany.

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Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.

Callahan’s Is Coming….

Every day that goes by Dan seems to be making great progress on his storefront. Our temporary window graphics are holding up and today we got the light box sign installed.

Now that the cold weather is setting in we need to complete the awning then focus on the graphics inside. This will be an awesome project and we will surely be paid in free Callahan’s hot dogs for life (wink, wink).

Rad and Mark were busy cutting the graphics and applying them to the sign face. Once completed Greg and Holin ran the panels out and installed onsite.

– Steve

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Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.

Sign Recreation: Ben & Jerrys

Technology is truly awesome! We were recently contacted by a retail store that had  their sign damaged beyond repair in a storm. The client had to have the same sign recreated – this was a hand carved Ice cream cone and logo. She decided to ship me the parts to inspect so I could recreate it.

The package arrived and yes it was beyond repair and covered in dirt and… mold.

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As I was putting the parts together to get measurements Rad, our Production Manager, walked by and said “Just 3D Scan It”.  I hadn’t thought of it but that sounded like a fun way to reproduce the sign.

So I put together the broken sign on the floor and ran our hand held Cubify Sense 3D scanner over the face of the old sign and it appeared on the screen in 3D model form. Using the clients supplied files I recreated the logo panel in Enroute Pro. I did some touch ups and scaling as well then  programmed the tooling and was cutting within an hour.791

220We carved the body of the sign from 15lb Precision Board HDU on our MultiCam 3000, – The Ice cream was cut from a 3″ thick block. The cone was cut from a 2″” thick block and the round sign panel was a 1″ thick piece. We then mirrored everything to make it a double sided sign.

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Once the body was on its way it was time to produce the logo panels. We made these from 1/2″ Black PVC with 1/2″ White PVC letters and the border is 1/8″ White PVC painted yellow.

We created pockets for the letters for easy registration when we glue them in place.

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  789We’ve added some magic sculpt for the chocolate chips to give it a little more dimension.  Looks like we’re ready to paint.

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Once primed with Coastal FSC-88 Primer we are ready for our color base coats. In this case we are using latex exterior paint. We’ve computer matched the colors from the original sign.

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842Once the base paint is on we can create the cone texture with two layers of a darker glaze then paint in the chocolate chips.  845

And here is the new (old) sign!

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Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.

Photo Booth Wrap – Fizzy Lifting Soda Pop Candy Shop

We’re back at Fizzy Lifting Soda Pop Candy Shop for some more fun work. This time Adam has asked us to design and wrap the photo booth. Here is the finished product!

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Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.