Speaking from Experience: Many techniques and materials

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, February 28, 2017

Many techniques and materials

While we love to use our MultiCam CNC plasma cutter and router as much as we possibly can, there are still a lot of things we need to do the old fashioned way - by hand. The large sculptures are created by welding up a structural frame and then a sub frame (armature) of pencil rod. We'll hand tie lath to this subframe and then trowel on the concrete and carve it by hand too. The globe for the Bug Whirled sign is a good example of these procedures. We bent the steel on our shop built hydraulic bender and then welded it securely together. This in turn was welded to a supporting structure which was welded onto the heavy CNC plasma cut steel base.

A more complex example of this same procedure is the tree structure for the Flutterbye ride control booth. It has many hundreds of feet of welded steel. The base plate was plasma cut. Many components of the mechanical fluttery were also CNC plasma cut as well. This afternoon I designed the dimensional sign this which will be routed from 30 lb Precision Board.