Bailey’s Project – Day 1: Countdown to St. Paddys Day

If anyone reading this knows us at KDF you probably know that we love a challenge. Usually the challenge comes in the form of a tight schedule or a difficult design or a slew of creative ideas that need to be quickly conceptualized, sifted through and executed on.  This project has all of the above. It has an extremely detailed custom dimensional sign with LED’s, goosenecks, layer after layer of HDU and it all has to be done by St. Paddy’s Day! We’re going to earn our Guinness on this one!

Last year we had the pleasure of working with our friends at Bailey’s Smokehouse in Blauvelt NY (http://www.baileysny.com/). AWESOME FOOD!!!!

We designed, printed and installed a van wrap for them. They’ve returned with a bigger and better request. A logo redesign and a custom sign to go with it.

So we started with what we’d love to see in a cool sign then worked backwards to create the logo.  We incorporated everything that was important to the client like the fonts, color and overall theme then we kicked it up a notch.

Here is the logo…

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DAY1: Today we kicked off our build by pulling apart the logo and figuring out how to make it. We’ll have two teams on this project – Mark and I will be taking on the task of designing the sign parts in Enroute Pro then cutting them on our MultiCam 3000 CNC. We’ll be feeding the parts to ”team two” for fabrication and painting.

 

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This is the first layer of the sign – we are cutting it out of 2″ thick 15# Precision Board.

 

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We’ve created a middle layer of HDU that we’ve cut a pocket into for out steel hanger.

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Brian and Greg will be doing the fabrication. They’ll start by making the grill out of 1″ steel tubing. Once the outside tubing is bent around the form it’s off to the welding shop.

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Published with permission from KDF Custom Graphics. Source.

That's Not Metal, It's All In The Finish!

Its hard to believe it’s not solid cast metal, but this is a custom finish applied to Precision Board Plus by the artisans at Synergy Sign & Graphics in Strasburg, OH!

This massive gearbox was built by Synergy as a showpiece for the front of their business as part of a recent Steampunk rebranding theme and also to show their 3-D and design capabilities.

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We asked Synergy Sign & Graphics owner Jim Dawson how he came up with this project and he responded: “Out of nowhere except my crazy head. I wanted to design something that reflected our recent Steampunk rebranding, and I came up with this idea.”

Thinking of a project is one thing, bringing it to life is another. “I started this project by planning out the contour layout for the gears and side beams in . Designing the project in AI is always our first step in our workflow of a project, as it is such a powerful drawing tool. Next, we imported the AI designs into our Enroute CNC software and put the CNC to work. We routed three sheets of Precision Board Plus PBLT-30 on our 5′ x 10′ MultiCAM 1000 and they came out absolutely perfect,” explains Dawson.

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After the pieces were cut, it was time to assemble the behemoth. The rolled chain was linked together with 1″ PVC pipes cut to size and PVC splice connectors for spacing to keep the chain aligned.

One of the major standout features of this project is the finish. After seeing the finished picture and looking close, it was apparent that every square inch of the gearbox was textured with an extreme amount of care.

Two coats of FSC-88WB Primer/Filler, undiluted, were hand-brushed on. Jim decided against diluting the primer, purposefully keeping it thick in order to simultaneously add texture while priming.

“After priming and texturing the entire gearbox, we added base coats of Modern Masters black and black metallic. Next we did 3 or 4 coats of a combination of a wipe on/wipe off glaze along with a lot of dry brushing. The aged look was completed with an application of Modern Masters Iron Reactive Paint, which is a 2-part process consisting of the paint and rust activator,” stated Dawson.

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Jim also used denatured alcohol on a rag to fine-tune the appearance of the rust in many of the low spots. “One of the coolest things about the Iron Paint is that the rust is continually activated by water if you don’t put a clear coat over it, which we didn’t. When it’s set up for good in front of our shop, it will continue to develop real rust, continually looking more aged,” says Jim.

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Jim plans to also create a fictional story documenting the history of the gearbox and its recovery from the Titanic. The story will be inscribed on a plaque attached to the front.

All in all, we would like to congratulate Jim and Synergy Sign & Graphics on this awesome project!

Be sure to check out more info about Synergy Sign & Graphics here.

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Whistle Punk Hollow Theming Job by Dan Sawatzky

Whistle Punk Hollow Adventure Golf in Squamish, BC is the newest recipient of an Imagination Corporation 3-D makeover. Precision Board Plus PBLT-30 was heavily incorporated into many aspects of the designs, including a massive train complete with Precision Board railroad tracks that turned out beautiful!

As a side note, here are a few of Dan’s favorite things:

Many more details about this project are available on Dan Sawatzky’s blog.

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Signs With Authority – A 55′ long Precision Board Sign

Talk about a sign with some authority! Jeff Wisdom, owner of Oregon SignWorks in Springfield, OR, sent in some pictures of a particularly impressive project he recently completed.

Suspended under a massive 11,000 lb., 85′ long, 36″ diameter Douglas Fir timber is a 55′ long Precision Board Plus sign. Built for the Oregon Garden Resort, the sign consists of 6 full 4′ x 8′ sheets of 1″ thick PBLT-18 and one additional 36″ wide piece. The words “Oregon Garden” were spelled out using 1″ thick PBLT-18 letters cut on Jeff’s MultiCam CNC router. Dibond was used as a core material for additional strength.

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Using some critical thinking and elbow grease, Jeff was able to hand-carve realistic looking wood grain into the sign. To accomplish this, several custom tools were used: a 3-prong garden hoe Jeff bent into a custom shape for the larger grain lines and a Nu-Pride Adhesive Spreader with the teeth filed down for the finer grain lines. The knots were shaped using a traditional v-groove wood carving tool. After the wood grain simulation was finished, Jeff primed the sign using FSC-88WB Primer/Filler and painted it with Sherwin-Williams acrylic paint. As you can see, the sign turned out beautiful.

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Supporting the sign is a massive timber structure that was constructed by Nash Logworks, located in Cottage Grove, OR. Each upright log was held in place by two 1/2″ thick x 6″ wide and 8′ long metal plates attached to each side. For structural strength, 4′ of each metal plate was tied down into the concrete and secured with rebar. Coats of Sikkens exterior stain provided weatherproofing and coloring. Total dimensions of the timber structure are 22′ tall x 85′ wide!

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Not to be overlooked is the beautiful 3-d sign located beneath the larger, hanging sign. Cut on Jeff’s CNC router out of PBLT-18, there was a whopping 6 different layers of Precision Board used to create a sharp 3-d look. The finer details were carved into the CNC cut sign with hand tools, and it was finished with the same primer/paint process as the larger sign.

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Jeff started making signs out in Los Angeles, CA in 1987 and eventually opened his own sign shop in his home state of Oregon in 1994. After spending a couple of years making vinyl signs, a visit to a trade show sparked his interested in dimensional signwork and he has specialized in them ever since. As a big fan of hand-carving, Jeff likes Precision Board Plus because of the absence of wood grain and the ease of cutting/carving.

Be sure to check out his website at: www.oregonsignworks.com to see more amazing signs!