Speaking from Experience: Special delivery

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

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Special delivery

The folks at Coastal Enterprises (Precision Board) needed a new display for the trade show coming soon. They had seen the latest article in SignCraft featuring the Kel-Mor dump truck and wanted something like that - only much smaller. I sent them a picture of a small sample sign I had done and they asked me to do a similar concept drawing.

The concept showed a small flatbed truck with Precision Board samples stacked on the back. We had an instant GO!

As I worked up the vectors for the piece I decided to make it a tandem truck. The first job was to create the ten wheels I needed. As a bonus I added the company name to the tire sidewalls.

The tires were a simple donut created by using the dome tool.

Next up were the wheel centers. After first creating a flat relief I dished these down using the dome tool once more.

The I created the rim edge as a separate flat relief.

The raised lettering was the next order of business, created by modifying the tire relief by ADDING TO.

Then I created a zero height relief and merged highest all of the pieces to this relief.

I then added the wheel center using the dome tool.

The wheel slots were created as zero height reliefs and then MERGED LOWEST to the wheel assembly.

The truck vectors were then designed around the wheels to get the proportion correct. I used these vectors to build the reliefs and to cut out the many pieces of Precision Board we would need for the assembly. I then sent the files to the MultiCam and in short order we had all of the pieces we would need for this project.

In the next day or so I'll be gluing it all together. Then the hand work can begin. Stay tuned...

-dan