The second part of the project was the frame that would go around the dart board. Yesterday’s project fit perfectly in the center to take full advantage of the material. The vectors were created in Illustrator and then imported into EnRoute.

The circle frame was domed slightly upwards. with a raised rim, inside and out.

I would put two textures in the donut, The first is one I call klingon chicken. It is a great random pattern.When I applied the bitmap I also selected the raised lettering to exclude it from these areas.

The second bitmap texture was one I use a lot called splotches. This randomized things just a little more. I also applied this texture to the British flag that is on the top.

 I had built the British flag as a separate relief which I now merged highest with the base relief.

The relief was not ready to be tool pathed and sent to the MultiCam.

 The file was ran with a 3/8″ bit at a 50% overlap as a rough pass and a 1/8″ ball nose bit with an 80% overlap for the final pass.  As you can see in the photo below I tucked the crown into the corner to use up the small bit of wasted material there.

Tomorrow I’ll be gluing it all together and gestating in on the painting process.

-dan

We are still working on details at the Fox & Hounds Pub. The to-do list is slowly being whittled down to size. Today I designed and routed a whole load of small signs, NO SMOKING, MECHANICAL ROOM and such. They’ll be given the faux copper treatment, so they are there, but don’t detract from ‘the look’ we have worked so hard to achieve.

I also built a couple of complex files and sent them off to the MultiCam. I’ll be posting one today and one tomorrow, even though they were combined into one routing file.

The first was a small sign that used some pretty useful EnRoute techniques. It is more complex than anything I would have tackled when I was starting, but broken down into small steps it is manageable. So let’s begin with a crown. I first roughed out basic half crown vectors, not worrying about shape or size. We’d tweak things up later.

Then using the vector editing tool I adjusted the nodes and added the curves to the vectors. Once I was happy I duplicated the vector shape, flipped one of the pieces and lined things up before merging.

Then I created the lower and middle rings for the crown starting with simple rectangles and then tweaking them using the vector modification tool. The basis crown relief was created as a zero height relief. The two ribs were dome reliefs with a 0.15″ tall vertical edge. I added the wiener shaped oval around the combined reliefs. This would be used to modify the relief.

The result was a crown that bowed outwards real nice! 

Then it was on to the flag background for the sign. First up was the vectors – all done in EnRoute. Other than the overall size of the sign everything was eyeballed, using EnRoute’s tools to rotate, center and space things so they looked right. I would resize and slightly distort the lettering as needed later.

 The jigsaw tool was the tool of choice for much of the next operation. I worked my way around the flag creating new vectors from the inside profiles of the combined shapes.

The center cross had to wait until last when all but one of the original vectors was gone. Now we are ready to begin the final work at last.

The crown was moved into position and an outline added. Then the lettering was positioned, resized and stretched a little before adding the outline. Now we could begin building the flag background relief.

A .045 “flat relief was first, then this flat relief was modified with the flag vectors, raising them by 0.15”.

I then imported the splotches bitmap from my TEXTURE MAGIC collection. This would add a subtle wavy texture to the colored flag sections of the Union Jack.

I then created separate flat reliefs of the outlines of the lettering and crown. These were raised to clear the flag and textures, then merged highest to create one file.

The last step was to ass the bevelled prismatic lettering.

The file was then ready to tool path and send off to the MultiCam.

Stay tuned for the second half of this project…

-dan

Yesterday I worked on the signs adding color after color, glaze after glaze. Each stage went quickly and by the time I was done every square inch of the signs had at least four layers of paint/glaze – some up to six coats. Because of the design and routing of multiple layers and lots of textures the process went easy. For tricky areas like the lettering I just had to drag a brush over the raised parts making cutting of the edges a snap. 

Now it will be up to the owners to chose their favorite and I’ll hang the other in my studio as a sample piece. Having finished samples on hand makes it easy to sell more of this kind of work in the future.

If it was your choice which one would you pick?

I do have a favorite but I’m not telling…

-dan

The two signs are being worked on simultaneously with progress being about equal. Similar but not the same, I’ll let the client choose the one they want and I’ll hand the other in our showroom as a sample to encourage future sales of this kind of sign.

The paint started with Coastal Enterprises heavy bodied primer FSC-88 WB. As is my style I brushed in on with a small brush, purposely leaving brush stroked behind. This adds character and goes a long way to making the sign look hand made.

I used Modern Master’s Acrylic Scenic paint for the base coats. It was also brushed on by hand. I worked with a very limited pallet, custom mixing my colors as I went. The gold paint is from Modern Masters Metallic line of paints.

I worked on the top portion of the sign initially as I like to splash paint around. Once the top part is done I’ll start in on the bottom portion. Next up is the glazing process.

Stay tuned…

-dan

Structure is critical in our work. Structure comes in many forms starting with the substrates we choose. In our shop I like to use 30 or 40 lb Precision board exclusively while most shops stick with the less expensive 15-20lb HDU. The numbers refer to the pounds per cubic foot. The higher the number the denser and tougher the product is. I want to sleep good at night and knowing I have used the best possible product for our projects means they will be a LOT sturdier and withstand a lot more abuse down the road.

The small sign we are building now is a good example of our sturdy construction methods. When it came time to build the town crier’s arm I first welded up a sturdy armature from 5/8″ steel rod. This was epoxied deep into the 30 lb Precision Board. I know that no matter what this guy’s arm is going to remain intact.

Once the steel rods were epoxied into place I did the sculpting of the hand and arm, knowing it will stay in place no matter what.

There is also some steel mesh embedded into his hat giving it a lot more strength like steel inside a concrete deck. Overkill? Perhaps, but if it never fails then it has done it’s job.

I’ll be sleeping well at night knowing the signs I build won’t fail due to poor material and shortcuts in their construction. Most of my customers and those who see it will never know. Hopefully they will be concentrating on the pretty face.  🙂

-dan