Easy Signs in Five Steps

*Rolling River Sign 010

 

Since I am not a good painter, I look at this step of making a sign the biggest challenge. I have tried rollers, brushes and rags all with mixed results. I am going to explain this month how I can finish a sign quickly and get what I and others feel are fantastic results. You may already be doing something close to this so don’t be surprised. Here we go…..

 

Step one- Route the sign in solid surface material.

Step two- clean the routed areas and let dry.

Step three- spray the routed areas and sides of lettering with the base coat

Step four- before the base coat dries, spray the top coat and let the two mix and mingle while drying.

Step five- After the paint dries sand off the over spray with your random orbital sander, polish and admire.

 

Now that you have the 5 easy steps, lets go a little deeper into each of them.

 

Step one: Routing the sign. My software of choice is PartWorks (Vectrics V-Carve PRO). I use a technique to get PartWorks to create two tool paths automatically. One for large area clears using a larger cutter and a smaller more detailed tool path with a smaller cutter. By doing this I reduce the time to cut a sign by much more than half. Here is how I do that. In the tool database create two “special” tools. I am going to use a 0.25” end mill and a 0.125” end mill. The trick here is to tell the software that you are going to V-carve the sign! When I enter the specs of the 0.25” end mill I select the tool type “engraving”. I tell the software to use a 0.1 degree angle and the diameter is 0.25 with a flat diameter of 0.249. Now create a special tool for the 0.125” end mill by entering values of 0.125 for the diameter, 0.1 for the side angle and 0.124 for the flat diameter. Remember to set your pass depth and the feed and spindle speeds appropriate to your work. Now all you have to do is select the vectors of your sign and tell PartWorks to V-carve it by using a large tool to create the area clear tool path and the smaller tool for the V-carving. My example assumes you are going to be using a 0.125” and 0.25” cutter. If you are going to use other sizes of cutter just enter them as engraving tools and adjust your numbers to fit your cutter.

 

PWscreen

 

Step two. I like to wash my solid surface with a mild detergent and lots of hot water before I paint it. This is to remove any dust that may still be sticking in the recesses. Make sure to let the sign blank dry before painting.

 

Step three and four. I use Rust-Oleum Hammered spray paint for this type of sign. I spray a heavy base coat of Dark Bronze followed up with Hammered Copper. You will have to adjust and experiment with how much copper spray paint you use. Don’t try to get even coverage and you will get better results. I find that after I spray the copper on and it starts to dry I will give it a little more spraying in places to brighten up the copper. Not too much now; you are not trying to cover up the base coat of dark bronze.

 

Spray Paint

 

Step five. After the thick paint has dried and gotten hard, I will start sanding the surface of the solid surface sign with 60-grit paper on my random orbital sander. Then I move up in the grits until I get to 400. Then I use buffing wheels to bring up the shine on the surface of the sign. The buffing starts out with one wheel and tripoli as the compound and then I move to the next wheel and white diamond compound.

 

There you have it, the five easy steps to making a very expensive sign. One thing for sure, if you are not making sawdust and spraying paint, you will not learn. Now go out and give it a try!

 

Rolling River Sign 012

 


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