Giving Life to Precision Board

Every year the next generation continues to impress us. After receiving the donated Precision Board Plus from Coastal Enterprises Company, these select creative minds brought life to what was once a block of urethane. Using PBLT hand in hand with 3D Printers, Paper Laser Cutters and CNC Milling machines, the students at Carleton University in Ottawa are working with cutting edge technology. They are incorporating materials and machinery to create amazing works of art.

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PBLT 15 & PBLT 18, along with 3D printing, shows the intricate detail in the ‘Reef Project’

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PB Bond-240 (one part Urethane adhesive) being applied to bond sheets of Precision Board, to achieve desired thickness for this project.   Next step: CNC machining!

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Brant Lucuik, a professional CNC technician, helped the students learn about and use the CNC machine to carve the Precision Board.  There was a combination of densities used for this project. The students used PBLT-10 up to PBLT-20, though PBLT-15 and PBLT-18 were the norm. Everyone was pleased with how easy Precision Board was to work with, “It sands and mills beautifully and I would use it exclusively if I could” said Johan Voordouw, Professor of 2nd year Modeling and responsible for the reef project.

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The students at Carleton used several 3D printers from around campus in conjunction with the Precision Board to create this reef scene. Most of the 3D printers used were “smaller makerbots” to create the coral reef shapes. Superglue was used to bond the 3D art to CNC carved Precision Board.

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Precision Board in conjunction with 3d printing make ideas become reality. For more information regarding these projects, contact Professor Johan at Carleton University. For any more information about a potential CNC project, contact Brant at Carleton University. To find out more about Carleton University, Click Here!

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I’ll take a Wrap and a Giant Hot Dog Please

This project allowed us to meld two of our skills, vehicle wraps and 3D Sign Making,  into one “unique” looking vehicle.  Our client Callahan’s Hot Dogs in Norwood was in need of a new vehicle wrap to match their now famous Hot Dog Truck. So Nanette dove into the design then Dan called and asked… “Can you build a giant hot dog for the top of the van?”. Of course I said yes

This is how we did it.

First the new design was created for the wrap. As the guys are working on this we’ll have the guys in fabrication building the hot dog.

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We started with the logo and converted it into a 3D file in Enroute Pro. Then sized it up and split it into two parts. We’ll cut the hot dog in slices so we can build a “skeleton” inside of it. This is important – we need this to be strong and solid as it cruises down the highway.

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Peter has the foam pieces laid out and will begin building the aluminum structure that will hold this all together.

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Meanwhile…. back in the “wrap room” Rad and Greg are cranking out the install.

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We are really customizing this one – all lettering has been removed from the van and we’ll replace them with the name of the van “Minibeast”. we also removed the Ford emblems and fabricated custom emblems that tread “Since 1950″. we cut the letters of out PVC and will paint them metallic with our PPG Paint System.

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The emblems are cut from PVC then painted metallic. We then printed the graphic directly to the emblem plate.   Once printed we clear coated them.299 300 303

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Peter has the basics done and he’s ready to test the sizing of the hot dog. 309 318

I’m in the paint room customizing the hubcaps!

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Dan stopped by for an inspection of the wrap – He’s a little anxious to get that Callahan’s hot dog on there! Don’t worry – it’s coming.

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Holin and Peter have the dog coated with AquaResin, sanded and ready for paint.  We’ll spray prime it and paint the base color then hand paint the details.

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Uh oh – can’t get it out the door…. No we got it.

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Time for the install.        433 442 All good.  (now we have to light it up). And again – I’m hungry.

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– Steve

Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.

bfree Sign: A Dimensional Sign of Metal and Wood (or maybe not)

I am lucky enough to live in the great town of Warwick, NY – we have wonderful restaurants and shops and its a destination for many people on weekend getaways. There is a new trendy shop opening, bfree and we were lucky enough to be called to help with her “new” look.

The clients logo needed some tweaking and unfortunately wouldn’t work on the sign.  We started by taking the logo and reformatting it to match the “feel” of the store and to better represent what you would see inside.

Our graphic designer Nanette jumped in and began creating a new logo which would incorporate wood, brushed metal and copper.

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Client loved it – now its time to make this baby!

We began with 15# Precisionboard HDU at a 1.5″ thickness. This will allow us to get all the elements, except the bfree letters on one panel.  We carved the brushed texture and branch into the background and the wood texture of the frame using our MultiCam 3000 CNC.

595 599We drilled holes and cut pockets for our lettering which we’ll make separately as a two part letter.  605 While the machine was working away Peter experimented with the some techniques to create a realistic copper finish.

603We’ve sealed the foam with a coat of AquaResin and and primed. ready for paint!

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We are using Modern Masters metallic silver as the base coat for the brushed metal. we’ll then add several glaze coats of latex color over it. When the sun hits it during the day it will shine like real metal and at night the overhead goosenecks will really bring out the metal finish and texture.

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While Peter is painting the silver Holin is in the paint booth painting the letters. We’ve carved the copper “swirl”  texture directly into the PVC cut letters for additional texture. We’ll then mount the 1/4″ Copper PVC textured face to 1/2″ black PVC for dimension and to also add some contrast.

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017 018 023 024 The letters are done – we’ll take them off and focus on the wood frame.

The latex base coat of the wood frame goes down then two or three coats of darker glaze. We now have a nice contrast of colors against the copper and black letters.

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All painted – ready to go on the truck for the install.

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171Installed and lit and looks great! We wish bfree the best of luck with your new location.

-Steve

Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.

At The Movies.

A while back, I remembered seeing a Han Solo in carbonite sculpture that caught my eye. It was made by a well known sign shop on the east coast and all I could think to myself was ” I could do that!”. Well, months went by, and I still never had the time to mess around with it. Then like usual, something popped up in the form of a prop we needed for the At The Movies series we put on at my church every summer. In the meetings, we ended up talking Star Wars and I knew it was my time to speak up.

Han in carbonite would be the perfect prop. So here it is.

I’ll be posting step by step pics of the process, so make sure you keep checking back. This is shaping up to be a fun one!!!!

Here is the 3D file we used for the carving. We used 18lb Precision Board and built the thickness via slices using Enroute Pro 5.1

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The entire sliced model was carved on our Multicam 3000 series router using 1/2″, 1/4″, and 1/8″ Ball End mill router bits.

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Here you can see the finished carved pieces. They are exceptionally smooth and accurate.
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Han is now awaiting his final mounting on the box that will be sculpted to look like the movie carbonite prop.

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Stay tuned for more progress pics!

-Jim

Published with permission from Synergy Sign & Graphics. Source.

Drawing by hand

These days I know many designers go right to their computer to work on a design. I like to start in my sketchbook with a good old fashioned pen. Even simple signs are designed this way.

Often the design is little more than a scribble… just enough to work out the specific ideas, fonts and textures I might use. Customers never see these roughs for they only serve to gather my thoughts – before I sit down in front of my computer.

Sometimes I do a little more work on these sketches. The font is nailed down, as is the background texture. Bevels and such are part of this rough plan as well. The idea is pretty much nailed in these more complex sketches.

And then there is the full blown concept drawings. I spend more time working out the ideas in my sketchbook, often as multiple drawings of various parts. Then I scan the sketches into my computer and using my drawing pad, rearrange and resize the components and then on a new layer redraw a final rendering. These drawings are for presentation to the customer. When it comes time for production I trace them again with vectors to start my routing files.

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.