This is my first piece from an idea to an actual item. Didn’t come out exactly as I planned but I’m finally getting closer. Ran great, no errors or disconnects. Feeling positive!
Done on pine sprayed with black and white to try and get a weathered appearance.
Lol love it. The finish works for me.
Looks real good!
As far as as planned, you’ll be hard pressed to get a really great finish from pine. It’s just too open grained/varying density for a truly clean cut. If you were to move that to a harder wood I think you’d be surprised at how much cleaner it’ll look.
Keep it up!
Dan
There are other ways to get the weathered look without obscuring the wood the way spray paint does. And, unless you are just a crack shot with spray paint, it’s harder to get consistent results if you planned on doing a lot of these signs. It’s harder to make it look natural, too. An easier way is a vinegar and iron oxide solution:
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/make-new-wood-match-old-2366122
Cheap, easy to apply, natural-looking, and consistent. They also make barnwood stains, if you prefer a commercial product. Also easy to apply, natural-looking (I think, I mean I’ve never used it lol), and consistent, but maybe not cheap.
Excellent sign, regardless. 
I like the sign 
but is it just me or does it seem you had a small leveling problem ? (i.e.the depth of cut seem to be shallower on the top right corner). Just asking, as this is a very common pb to have when starting to use the machine, and easy enough to fix
Thanks for your replies and input, I do appreciate it.
I will look into the hard wood and also the weathering effect. I totally forgot about the vinegar trick. I used to work at the Grand Canyon West and we used that to make our western town artifacts appear aged. Thank you for jogging my memory!
Yes, I do have a small leveling issue. Never really realized it until this cut as I wanted to stay shallow. I’ll be addressing that prior to my next run.
I know this project is just a baby step but it was my actual first that came out close to what I expected.
Thanks again!
Great work!
I finally used something other than pine and was relieved that it wasn’t all my fault that my projects were coming out…crappy…for lack of a better word. I bought an oak plank and a poplar plank a couple of weeks ago. I just carved a couple of plaques on the poplar and they carved much better than on pine. I’ll get up the nerve to carve something on the oak soon. Hopefully it’ll be even more impressive.
Thanks again!
Alvin, I work all week and don’t have a chance to use my Shapeoko but I intend to try some hardwood this weekend. Fingers crossed!
Working all week…yeah, I resemble that remark! Looks like you have a pretty good bead on things. I know it’ll come out great. Looking forward to see what you create. Happy carving bro!
