Blogs
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Sign
Another super fun job! The Amazing Spider-Man 2 sign. This sign will hang at the Disney Store in Times Square. We cut the larger letters out of 1.5″ Precision Board HDU and the smaller letters from 3/4″ PVC. We then cut the face of the letters from 1/4″ PVC. Brian then painted the red part of the letters with Metallic Red paint then airbrushed the gradation onto the face – WOW I love it
Low Density – High Accuracy – Making it Happen with PBLT-4
From the snowy mountains of Colorado, Donn Arrell, owner of Clinton Systems and topographical model maker extraordinaire, sent in a picture of his latest creation. Donn CNC-machined this topographical map using Precision Board Plus PBLT-4, which is the lowest density...
Spraying Metal Onto HDU Signs: Copper, Iron & Bronze Finishes
Plate-All is a real, living (it ages just like real metal) metal finish that can be applied to virtually any substrate. The resulting finish looks and feels exactly like solid cast metal without the cost or weight. To show off this beautiful finish, we sent three...
Designing for the (near) future
As we come into the home stretch on the urgent large project I am also full blast into the final designs for the next project due to start as soon as this one is done. The next will be a fun one with all kinds of full blast dimensional signs of course. Here’s a sneak peek at a few of the designs coming off the design table… As much fun as the current project is I do believe the next will be a teeny bit better yet – as it should be.
Smaltz & Gold-Leaf: The Mark of A High-End Sign
As the proprietor of a sign shop, having a nice-looking sign for your business is a good rule of thumb. Dave Correll, owner of Brushwork Signs in Faribault, MN, recently decided to make a new sign for the outside of his business - a sign that was featured on the cover...
How to build a Pelton water wheel.
The Pelton water whee isn’t a project we routed, nor was it made of Precision board but I thought the readers of this bog might like to see how such a project goes together. The same engineering and figuring that go into this piece apply to many of our other (sometimes) complex projects. We had all of the pieces for the Pelton water wheel ready to go but no instructions how to put them together.
“Robots” Sign – Complete
We’re coming to the end of the “Robots” project. I’m doing a little painting in place as it hangs in the wall. First I’m going to paint the “guts” of the letters – then age them a little bit. This is a Modern Masters Metallic Copper. I’ll then do a glaze of Black Pearl over the copper. Once dried I’ll rust out the metal clamps. The last touch is to dry brush some pure silver back over the face of each letter
Handy uses for the EnRoute program
EnRoute is a powerful routing program without a doubt. I can create some pretty cool routing files using it but it is also handy for so much more. When I need to create a plan view of something to scale it is the CAD program I turn to.
Pedal Power – Part Four
Once the routing was done I glued and clamped all of the layers together using PB Bond 240 glue from Coastal Enterprises. It tends to squeeze out a little on the edges of the seams but that was no problem. I like to use an air powered die grinder to take off the glue and add a little random texture while I’m at it.