WELCOME!

It is hard to believe that it was almost ten years ago I witnessed a CNC router in action for the very first time. I was fascinated and simply had to have one! Although I had been in the creative end of the three dimensional sign business for most of my life I didn't really know what I would do with one of these machines - but I just knew it could do fantastic stuff.

Along with the CNC router I discovered the wonderful material called Precision Board and the glues, primers and other companion products they offer. Since then we have gone through many tons of the material using it in most signs and projects we tackle. This journal will chronicle our many adventures both past, present and future. I'll talk from the perspective of someone who pushes these products to the creative limit on a daily basis. I'll be adding to the stories two or three times each week. -dan

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Last of the series.

Since the Sign Magic Workshop begins tomorrow morning bright and early I am posting the last of this series of name plaques today.

Scott works in sales at MultiCam Western Canada so I decided his name plaque should reflect the machines he sells. Since his office is in the MultiCam office we themed a while back I drew a lot of visual ideas from that project. ( To see the photos of that project go to the right sidebar and under labels/MultiCam done you will find pictures. )

I used a very basic font and then built a gear to substitute for the 'O' A linear gear serves as the underline. The vectors were created inside EnRoute.


First off was a basic flat relief as shown. 


Since I wanted the whole thing to have a similar texture, making the gears look well used I assed a simple and subtle texture to the entire piece. This bitmap is from the TEXTURE MAGIC collection and is called splotches 1.  It gives a slightly different texture as the normal one as it is an inverted version.


The letters and gears were all raised the same amount as flat modifications to the original relief.


Then I modified the original relief one last time using the dome tool to create the rivets.


As quick as that the project was ready to tool path and then send to the MultiCam.


I didn't get a shot of the plaque on or after it got off the router but I grabbed one tonight to it anted and ready to go.


Tomorrow I'll try and grab some shots of a few more of  the name plaques finished.

-dan