Blogs
Another load gone
With everything ready to go prior to the fifty-three foot trailer arrived we had a whole day to load it. This meant we could do the task without rushing. The pallets were numbered and one by one we carefully brought them to the truck and slid them into position. Since we don’t have a loading dock we instead used the forklift along with a custom designed, two piece push rig that fits onto the forks. We can reach into a trailer about thirty feet.
Making a Splash with Pirok Design: Creating Blackberry Farm’s Dimensional Signs
Kevin Pirok founded Pirok Design in 1996 after spending the early stages of his career working with some of the most talented sign-makers in the business. Now in its 22nd year of business, Kevin's Illinois-based company does logo design, websites, marketing materials...
Packing for the trip
We think carefully about how we will move our pieces in the shop as we build them. They need to be safely lifted into the transport truck and secure while they are being transported. Once on site our customer needs to easily and safely move them once more, lift them into place and secure them in place permanently.
Telling a story with paint
Yesterday I mounted the dynamo armature to the largest gear on the ‘MARVELOUS MACHINE’. I then designed and cut a bracket to mount the outer housing. I painted and aged the pieces prior to assembly. It was pure magic to watch it all turn. It was looking pretty good but I wasn’t finished quite yet.
Hands-on learning
I’ve known Julio Pierre for ten years, and had the chance to visit with him at sign trade shows through that time. Julio works for MultiCam as an application specialist. He does demonstrations of the various machines which MultiCam builds. Through the last ten years Julio has answered my countless questions as I sought to learn more about MultiCam CNC machines
How this Black Panther Clawed its Way through Precision Board HDU
We came across this great article in the May issue of Signs of the Times magazine from Mike Bethune of Bethune Signs. He talked about using Precision Board to create a dimensional sign for a Florida high school. When a storm destroyed the sign at the entrance to...
Another name plaque
With the arrival of a guest in our shop tomorrow it was time to create a name plaque. Julio wants to learn how we do our finishing and there’s no better way than doing it hands on! In order to demonstrate our techniques we needed a second name plaque as well, so Grant (my soon to be son-in-law) is getting a name plaque as well. Both plaques are to be identical save for the name. I started by building the vectors for the plaque components I then selected the plaque outline and created a flat relief
Dimensional samples
One of the most striking thing anyone will notice as they walk into our shop and studio is the many dimensional samples hanging on the walls. There are more than one hundred and fifty in all (so far). It’s obvious that we have invested a great deal of time and effort to create them. Why would we make such an effort? There are many answers to this question
Dynamo
As I thought about what my ‘MARVELOUS MACHINE’ would do I decided the steam engine would power an electric generator which would in turn power the next device. With a little research I discovered they were called a DYNAMO when they were invented. On further research I found a photo of one I liked. I did a sketch to visualize how it would fit on a heavy duty bracket and have a gear to drive it. Then it was time to guild the routing files