I was approached by a potential customer wanting me to make a sign for his office wall with his company logo. I was steering him toward Color Core initially because I just thought it would be faster and in wood it would require a glueup for the size he wants.
I have pretty much manually traced all the vectors now because the auto methods didn’t yield good results. But, I don’t think I can come up with a way to use the 2 color ColorCore that will do his logo justice. This could look cool with a multi color wood inlay, but that would take a lot more effort than he would want to pay for I am sure and I don’t think I want to tackle that one just to see if I can do it.
Paint? Epoxy? I am sure that I can’t recreate the gradients but I would like to do something that will look good. Maybe just some black outlines around some of the vectors even if there is common color in the areas.
I have never seen that before, but I don’t have Illustrator or Corel Draw so I don’t think I can use it. It is interesting that you can scan in your sheets of veneer and use their image to paint regions in the software. Its a tad on the pricey side and no free trial. It may be worth it if you are doing a lot.
I do have a laser now so cutting veneer would be super easy. Since this is an indoor sign maybe that would be a good way to go. It would have much less risk than doing a true inlay on the CNC.
I thought about that. I don’t have a printer that can handle it the size he wants but I have a relationship with a local sign company that prints all their signs and adheres them to a Maxmetal substrate. I was actually thinking about trading this guy a sign in exchange for some of his pressure washing services. If I outsource part of the job that may not work out though.
I do have a ton of vinyl in various colors. I could maybe do marquetry with that and then a clear coat. On second thought, peeling off the backing from that many pieces sounds like a ton of work.
As @CrookedWoodTex said, online order for the print. Those gradients are a non starter for me.
How big a sign will this be ? Is the perimeter square/rectangle or follow the art ?
Edit:
How about separating the image so you can use height to accent the sign components.
The levels may independently contain the Name, Water, Spray gun and hose.
Have the print cut for each level.
I’ve been wanting to get into that. Funny I inherited one from my brother. I opened up the box and it had a flyer inside that said “Badger is the choice for the 80s”.
The hose is a sticky mess now but the guns look ok.
Not all projects are meant for CNC. That being said, my first thought was an epoxy inlay using semi transparent dye. Deeper cuts would yield a darker blue, shallow cuts a lighter blue. I’d consider white Corian for the base material. This would take some clever CAD work, and a lot of trial and error to get the epoxy/dye ratio just right.
