Doug isn’t like anybody else I know. By his own description he is part artist, sculptor, painter and mad scientist. His current logo is a rocket blasting off of a moon. Designing his name plaque is a snap
Lunar name plaque
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Checkerboard name plaque
With the Sign Magic Workshop now just over a month away it is time to get busy with the preparations. Each guest will receive a routed name plaque to take home with them. Through the years of the workshops I’ve designed and routed more than 200 of these name plaques – all different. they are a great way to learn the program! For Kyle I decided a checkered flag would be cool. I wanted it to wave both vertically and horizontally.
Last routed piece for inside new house
Today a long awaited piece is on the MultiCam. It’s the last piece for inside the new house. In the last nineteen months I’ve created more than 200 routing files in EnRoute and we’ve routed thousands of pieces. Now the last piece is on the router for the interior with not many left on the outside to go
Almost the last of the trim
One of the MultiCam’s strong suits is production routing. It can churn out identical parts all day long with little work from me. The thing is I don’t often produce copies of anything we make.
BUSY, now and as far as we can see.
For the last week or so the MultiCam has run twenty-four/seven, churning out the many pieces of trim for the new house. I’ve shown the process of building those files previously as well as the many stages of painting so I’ll leave that be here. As soon as the trim is routed, painted and glazed it is going up on the house and looking very fine at that. Here’s one shot of the back patio area
Mechanical fish is COMPLETE!
As soon as my regular work was done I rewarded myself by packing the heavy mechanical fish sign into my office and placed it in it’s permanent home on the bookshelf next to my desk. A few minutes with a small brush polished off the last of the painted details and I declared the fish officially DONE. It’s been almost three months since I did the first sketches on the plane home from Indiana. I worked on the mechanical fish between other projects, seldom more than an hour or two at most in any sitting and instead of having my helpers assist did everything with my own hands – a rarity. Although I am sure I might do some things a little differently the next time I am very pleased with the piece.
All done – except for…
With the sculpting now all done it was down to paint and small details. It wouldn’t take long. I spent about an hour putting on the rest of the base coats on the rocks. Then it was down to the final glazes.
Saturday morning fishing time
This morning I spent some relaxing time doing the last of the sculpting on the mechanical fish. I also did some more painting of the base coats. The fish is looking pretty good now.
Lock it up
One of the early signs I did just after getting my router was a giant padlock for the lockers at a mini golf at Mall of America.The sign was to mount to a wall. I decided to weld the bracket right into the interior structure. The padlock shackle was a 2″ pipe bent into a ‘U’. It would be plenty strong to be sure. The sign faces were routed in layers from 30 lb Precision Board. I then glued them up with the steel frame in the middle using