A famous Mr. Rogers song says, “You can grow ideas in the garden of your mind.” Well, we took a page out of his book and hit the streets with this great idea we came up with out of nowhere. It involved three different companies collaborating on a three-part project that we knew would turn out great. So, who are the players?

• Plate-All, with their spray metal coating and it’s eye-catching, protective finish
• KDF Reprographics, respected sign makers, known for their CNC expertise and unique craftsmanship
• Coastal Enterprises, manufacturers of Precision Board Plus, the versatile sign and tooling substrate

The first leg of this creative expedition starts at KDF Reprographics in Rockleigh, NJ, where the very talented owner, Mr. Stephen Hoey, created three 3-dimensional designs using CNC software.

“I imported each company logo into Enroute in vector format and made a relief for each logo. Next, I set the logos aside and went to work on the design for each piece – for example, since the spray metal produced by Plate-All comes in a variety of finishes, I went with three major themes: a wave, gears, and a weave – each of which I thought would be accented nicely by the spray-metal produced by Plate-All.”

While the process may have sounded easy, it by all means wasn’t.

“Due to the smaller size of the PBLT-30 samples (15″ x 15″), it meant more time in the design phase and on the CNC than some of the larger projects we work on. We also had to use a smaller bit on the CNC – 1/16″, which, although it took longer, allowed us to produce samples that practically look as if they came from a mold. All told, total process for each design was about an hour,” says Hoey.

Here are the Enroute designs crafted by Steve:

After finishing the designs, they were CNC routed into three 15″ x 15″ pieces of Precision Board Plus PBLT-30 (30lb. pcf).

The next leg of the journey will take them to cold-metal spray manufacturer Plate-All in Baltimore, MD, where each sample will receive a different spray metal finish. What is spray metal? For the best answer to this question – and to see some pictures of spray metal finishes, head over to this page on the Plate-All website.

We will be producing three articles on each sample and the custom finish it receives in the near future. Sign up for our monthly Blog Round-Up to stay up to date!