In a good way!
Recently I had the opportunity to make a sign for Beau Lodge. They needed a simple sign to replace one that had seen better days, it came together awesome and I wanted to share a bit more about it.
To kick things off, here's the finished sign in it's native habitat -
To be fair, it's hard to go wrong with cedar and metal for something like this.
Anyhoo, here's how we got there -
First off, I'm pretty impressed with how close the rendering matches the final design! (Yeah I am patting myself on the back a little, somebody's got to do it right?!) And when I say "rendering" I mean a quick and dirty photoshop kinda thing. But for real, what's a better than saying, "Is this what you'd like your sign to look like?" to make sure everybody is on the same page?!
Once I got the thumbs up, as another bonus it was easy to take the text from the rendering and program Richard to do the cutting.
I guess I'm saying, this is working really well for me and those I work with. If you're into this kinda stuff too I'd say give it a try
One more for good measure -
So, some details about the actual sign, right we should do that 😁
The wood is 5/8" rough cut cedar boards. I used a 1/8" downcut bit to cut the lettering and graphics. I used this bit instead of a V bit because I used a torch to give the contrast instead of paint. I find text with a flat bottom is easier to "blowtorch color" than V carved text. The bonus is that it's faster than paint, gets the awesome rustic-y look and the customer didn't like having to touchup the old painted sign so we burninated!
Next, sand it. There's always sanding. Always. I'd bet if I built a sander I'd have to sand the sander. I guess I've never sanded sand paper though, so that's not nothing...
Back on topic - sanded with 120 grit after burninating (shameless plug, if you also have a Makita Sander, checkout my adapter to hook it to your dust collector😉) . Gave it a quick coat of mineral oil and the wood was done. We'd talked about weatherproofing but decided to let it age and get that cool cedar "patina" that would fit in with the rest of the lodge.
The metal frame was supplied by the lodge. I cleaned it up, reworked it to fit the new sign boards and then gave it a couple coats of rust inhibiting black paint. After the paint dried it was time to assemble and deliver! That's it, easy peasy lemon squeezey... Well not really. There was no lemons involved. But you get the point. OK, rambling now which means it's time to wrap it up!
If you need a sign or some other thingamajig lets talk! Just hit the contact button at the top of the page and let me know what you've got going on!
OK, that is all. Thanks for playing!