I started design for this project about four months ago. The sign was to be a teeny part of a very large project – an entire theme park. My client approved the design of the sign holder (the waterfall, wood base, small mountain and the lighthouse but wanted a rethink of the actual logo.
Our fall weather has been exceptionally warm and dry compared to normal. This means we are able to concentrate on outside work as much as possible. It also means the MultiCam has been quieter than normal for much of the month. But the typical rainy fall weather is now starting to happen and so we will be in the shop a lot more in the coming weeks and months.
Anytime we move a large piece it is always an exciting day. The day we move something this large it’s over the top! My client was handling the move so it was less stressful than usual. The load towed smooth, and at reasonable speeds it was stable and easy. The good news was we only had ten miles to go. The tight turn up the steeper hill to the lake went without incident. When we arrived at the ale it took a few minutes to hook up the zoom boom.
Sometimes creating a sign involves many disciplines with the routing part only a portion. One of our current projects is just such a piece. We’ve been working on it for more than a week and the routed portion is still a week distant. It will be the primary sign for the Cultus Lake Adventure Park. The sign will be jammed into a dirt bank.
Other pieces I’ve documented in the last while are quickly getting polished off and moved out into the parking lot until they are transported up to the work site. Here’s a few shots. In the shop other pieces are ready for paint or in various stages of base colors. Stay tuned for more… -dan
Although we’ve been crazy busy for the last three weeks and have accomplished much there hasn’t been time for reporting the progress here. It’s time to catch up on things a little. There will be a lot of pieces to design and route for this project, but along with that is a lot of other work which will be tied in. We are literally building a small mountain (large in my eyes) on which some of the routed work will attach. As onsite work begins we have largely been working in the shop, prefabricating as much as we can
The last three weeks have been exhausting with my spending about 100 hours each week in the shop or on the road. The trip to Trinidad was the first adventure. I met with the project principals, engineers, , contractors and government officials to discuss how every step will be done and how the logistics might work. Site visits answered many questions and provided a ton of information for the future.
Just after first break today we packed up the tools and switched to get ready for workshop mode. The shop was tidied and swept, benches cleared, tables and chairs were brought out from storage and the setup began. In less than two hours the shop was transformed into a classroom one one more time, in readiness for our guests to arrive. Our Sign Magic Workshop group was travelling from far and wide including, New Brunswick, Ohio, Utah, Colorado, Oregon and Australia
There was some quick hand sculpting on the sign, particularly the edges and scrolls to even things up, get rid of glue lines between the layers of Precision Board and add some woodgrain to the sides of he boards. Then it was time to sculpt the beavers using sculpting epoxy. The two beavers took about two hours per side to sculpt.