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

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Complex pub sign - part two


The pub sign started like pretty much every project. I would build a flat relief, in this case 0.4" thick. Everything else would be built on top or added to this basic relief.


The next step was the borders. These vectors were selected along with the original relief and then I modified the original relief by adding to them 0.15" in height. 



The ornate background border was next. It overlapped the border element so I built it as a separate relief. Because so many of the elements overlapped from here on in, we would have to build the rest of the files and separate reliefs and then merge highest to modify the original relief. I first built the fancy design as a separate relief that was 0.7" tall to make it slightly higher than the background and borders. Then I modified this relief by adding the shield shape that was another 0.15" tall.



this fancy shape was then merged highest with the base relief. The two steps for this proceedure are shown below.



And here's the file rendered as it now looks.


So far things have been pretty easy and straight forward but as we get into the file it gets a little more complex. Stay tuned for more next time.

-dan