Community challenge #23: The Special One (closed)

Hey, it was gorilla glue super glue and rustoleum spray cans.

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Nice work now if there was only a way to make Canadian teams perform as good as these signs look lol. I’m kidding I don’t follow any sports teams so I have zero clue about how any of them perform. My favorite TV comedy show is How I met Your Mother so every time I see Canada all I hear is Barney Stinson trash talking them even though he is part Canadian.

I like your gluing template that keeps everything aligned.

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Lol thank you! Love that show as well!

The wife and I made a simple and completely customizable sign for the kitchen/house! We’re pretty happy with how it turned out. Our hot-swappable Scrabble-esc Message Board:

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Design
I started the design in Fusion to check spacing, looks and overall setup. I also threw in some test text to see how the letters would look on the tiles when assembled:

With the recent(?) popularity of the shiplap concepts floating around, it was determined that the feature should be included somehow. I decided to cut V-grooves on the back panel to give it that faux shiplap appearance. It certainly helped to give some added character to the simple sign!

Once I had the general design, I manually checked the angle of the tile pieces when sitting on a “tile holder”. I adjusted the holder geometry until I arrived at what looked like a reasonable angle for the tile to sit, with a balance between legibility and resistance to tipping (for tipping example see the last “E” in COFFEE in the finished pic above, easy to push back into place):

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CAM
Once the piece designs were locked in, I moved on to the CAM:
For the Tile Holders,
18000rpm, 40ipm, 0.08” DOC with 2D pocket toolpath, and then 2D contour toolpath.

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I batched them all out together with the nice Pattern option:
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For the sign backing, the quick and dirty “shiplapping”….with the 60 deg V-bit (18000rpm, 40ipm):
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For the tiles themselves, the pattern feature certainly came in handy (yes I forgot to caliper the “1/4” MDF before I superglue/taped it down…adjustments made in the Cleanup CAM haha):

image 18000rpm, 40ipm, 0.04 DOC

We wanted the tiles to have an old school cartoony look to them, so we picked the font Sunday Best” found on dafont.com.

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Finishing:
The backing (1/2" birch plywood) was finished with a simple honey stain, followed by a lacquer seal coat. The tile holders (same birch ply), we liked the simplistic look of the birch plywood and so we kept it the bare wood color.
For the tiles themselves (1/4" MDF), we elected to paint each of the tiles white and then laser burn the letters. The reason we went this route was simply because…there were a lot of tiles and I didn’t feel like setting up a CAM profile to carve out each letter, and then hand paint the letters…. so laser to the rescue:
image (square placed for low-profile zero reference point to place the tiles quickly)

image <–(blue tape used to mitigate overburn from laser)

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Final pic again:
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This was a fun project to knock out, with the added benefit of having a sign we can easily change for various seasons! We’re planning to utilize the back side of the tiles to be able to change the phrase while conserving tile numbers. At the very least, we’ll make it into a fun Xmas phrase later this year.

Design Files: here
Lightburn letter example, if anyone would like it (remove “.zip” in file name to open):
scrabble letter A.lbrn.zip (14.0 KB)

Comments and feedback welcome as always,
Kyle

19 Likes

When choosing feeds and speed in CC, what material did you treat this as?

Still pretty new to the community, and to my Shapeoko. Anyways here’s a sign I made for our shop that started out as a locker-room back in the 50’s. Made with an old MDF shelf, and then hand-painted.

Wyatt

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just sofwood :slight_smile: sorry it took so long to answer back.

@GeneralSid What endmill did you use for the PVC in the Maple leafs sign. A 1/16"? Looks like almost no kerf.

No worries. Thanks for the response. Being a plastic material I could see where there is room to have some dedicated feeds and speeds but this is a pretty light and quick operation so there is plenty of margin for error.

Dang! Your sign looks amazing! I also like seeing how you showed the steps of making it!

Yes, 1/16th o flute upcut.

1 Like

Steve - Happy to see the beautiful sign you did for your buddy. It’s all about sharing. Ironically enough, I too own a Kitfox Speedster plane that I built in Georgia and you sign has inspired me to make for a good friend that also has a Kitfox. Nice long flight to Oshkosh??? Done it myself a few times.

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@PMorel - Thanks for your kind words. More projects coming on the Kitfox. We’re upgrading the avionics to a Garmin G3X and adding autopilot (to help with the next cross-country flight). I’m going to cut his new dash out of anodized aluminum on my Shapeoko and laser-engrave the switch labels with a Jtech Laser that I’m about to purchase. 15 hours there, 16 hours back (stopping every 3 hours for gas and bio break). And the captain never turned off the seatbelt sign :slight_smile:

tried a variety of depths to see which one I liked best. Of course that would vary depending on the design of what is being cut but this gives me an idea. I also think a 30 degree V bit would work nicely too. I might repeat this test with that bit.

10 Likes

Throw my hat in the ring here in hopes that the prize is a HDM to cut 1.5" thick Acrylic. :laughing:

This signage was for a client who wanted the look of “formed letter signage” without having to pay the $300-400 per letter that this type of signage costs across their 40 locations. The most important thing I learned from doing this (apart from how to mill 1.5" thick Acrylic) is the easiest way to generate profit from owning a Shapeoko is get into the sign business.

The Process:
1.25" thick acrylic is the thickest that I know you can buy from plastic suppliers and this client wanted 1.5" thick letters. That meant getting 2x .75" thick sheets and using a plastic weld to fuse them together. I used WeldOn 4. this + a-lot of clamps created my stock.

Once I had the stock I had to make the design. The two biggest challenges with making commercial ready signage are as follows:

  1. Making everything look hidden
  2. Dealing with “mall cops” and commercial property managers regarding code and permitting issues. this is especially true if your signage is electrified. Accordingly, much of the process below takes into account UL listed parts… thats not to say you can’t do it cheaper… I just used higher quality electronics because I had to.

Channels for the LED rope needs to be offset from the letter edges and holes bored for hanger bolts to insert into.

The hanger bolt holes (as well as holes for mounting the superstruts and a hole to pass through each letters JST connector) need to be transfered onto a “backer” so that you have a “map” of where the letters mount.


Then you need to find a space long enough to tile 24’ of sign backer through :laughing: my foyer did just fine

Next you need to painstakingly solder all of the letter connections according to the type of LEDs you are using and the directionality of the data pin.

Finally, you need to wire everything correctly and make sure you have even voltage across the sign and enough of a power supply to drive around 35’ of 5v LED rope. I’m not going to get into the nuances of this but I will link all of my materials below where I can.

Also, milling 1.5" thick acrylic is challenging, I detail my struggles trying to get a near sand-less finish in this thread in depth. After much trail and error, I got to a finish quality where I could likely start at 220grit sandpaper and end up at matte pretty quickly. Not perfect, but other then doing a 2-sided machining I don’t think that Shapeoko3XXL has the rigidity needed to get a PERFECTLY smooth finish at a 1.5" cutting depth in something as hard as acrylic.

Materials List:

PS if youve gotten this far wondering why there are two business names … when I was in the middle of making the first batch of 13 signs they decided to re-brand from testing to health :roll_eyes:

Fusion File:
https://a360.co/3iRgpqk

Mistakes:

  • Under-powering your LEDs; 300w 5v 60amp Driver is BARELY enough to get pure white light on the “white” color.
  • Wiring your LEDs in Series vs Parallel and getting voltage drop over the long sign
  • Using LEDs from the same company but different production runs have slightly different color whites
  • Not including 2-3 hours of edge sanding per sign in your estimate to get a matte edge finish on the letters
  • Thinking that soldering one letter together would take 10mins (reality was 30-45 once you got good at it).
  • Not selling a service contract after a 6 month warranty period.
28 Likes

It’s a great sign. Have you considered using PVC board with a coat of paint and coating it in epoxy? You will get a super nice glossy finish and save a ton of money on materials. You can also add mica powders for really cool effects.

Check out Stone Coat Counter tops they have great DIY videos showing how to simulate various stones and other great finishes.

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5 Likes

My wife wanted a door hanger for the Fall and gave me an idea of what she wanted, a pumpkin with “Welcome” over it.

I found a pumpkin svg and turned traced it in carbide.

Cut down some MDF and got it cut out.

we found a font she liked but had to save it outside carbide since I could not find a way to convert it correctly to line art and imported it to carbide. I painted the MDF before cutting it out.

I primed and painted the Pumpkin.



I tried painting the inside of the letters and got paint all over the Welcome sign.

I sanded it down and repainted it green and watered down some acrylic paint to fill in the letters.

I lined up the welcome sign on the pumpkin and screwed it in from the back.

Now we just have to wait for fall to hang it on the door and the wife is very happy with it.

22 Likes

I was asked to create a sign for a small start up plant business, a friend of the owner. She sent me a sticky note with what she want on the sing. I created a mock up and sent it to her and asked to make sure everything was correct, she said it looked great. I cut and finished the sign and sent her a photo of the finished piece. After several days she final said the date was wrong so I sent her back the note she had provided, she said she was sorry and asked if I could fix it. I cut several “0” on a scrap piece of material used my band saw to cut them off, I then used a carving chisel to remove the number “1” from the finished piece and glued, sanded, stained the edges then re-sprayed the entire piece. The owner was extremely happy with the new sign her friend had commissioned for her.




Processing: 193F8B26-E719-407F-8A8C-5F563457A0C2.jpeg…


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Hey everyone! New Shapeoko owner & first time poster here. :smile: Didn’t intend for this to be my entry, but time flies when you’re having fun! I came up with a simple pen holder that fits into Sweepy. It’s posted on Cutrocket, and only takes 10 minutes to make. Give it a shot! I’m happy with how it works, but I wanted to use different writing utensils. I made another one that straps on to the router spindle and makes color changes way easier. Been having lots of fun doing pen & marker drawings lately–much less noise and dust… lol. Anyway here’s a little sign I made for myself as a friendly reminder to keep calm & carry on. I’m super impressed with all these other entries, and I really enjoy coming here for inspiration! Thanks!











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I’ve been pretty quiet but that’s because I’m blown away by the number/diversity/quality of entries, now you all have me worried I’ll break the poll system limit when we get to the voting :slight_smile:
Keep them coming!

4 Likes