![]() ![]() What’s sandblast mask? Well, the way you make a sandblasted sign, is you take an air-compressor (a BIG one), hook it up to a special metal chamber called a “hopper” that is filled with a fine, abrasive material (we use coal-slag). Here is the sign after the “sandblast mask” has been applied. Here are the glued up boards, after they have been sanded, planed, and cut to size and shape. It’s really a no-brainer to do that, and I can’t imagine picking up a jig-saw to do it.Īs a matter of fact, I can’t tell you the last time we used the jig-saw in the shop. #2: Naturally, we also use the ShopBot to cut out the shape of the sign-blank. ![]() Then we flip it over and do it again! What we end up with is a picture perfect blank surface After we take the clamps off a glue up, we lay it on the table, put a 0.5” bit into it, and then it pass over every square inch of the sign to plane off everything nice and flat. #1: We actually use our ShopBot as a vertical planer. Now, here is where we used the ShopBot, and we used it for two things: Here is Chip’s blank after all the clamps have been placed, and it will sit overnight and be ready to blast in the morning. When we glue the boards together, we will stick a wooden wedge called a “biscuit” into the slot which will help us get the boards lined up properly.Īfter spreading glue on the edges of the boards, we put the blank together and then pull it together using pipe-clamps. It is also a very light wood (doesn’t weigh all that much) and it likes being carved (as opposed to oak, which does not!).Īfter the wood has been cut and trimmed, we use a tool call a “biscuit cutter” to cut slots in the boards. Why Western Red Cedar? Resistant to insects, rot, and repels water to some degree. We actually have it shipped in from Washington State, as I have not been able to find any nice Western Red Cedar (that I have been happy with) at this end of the country. When we sandblast, our wood if choice is vertical-grain, Western Red Cedar. Basically we take a number of boards, and glue them end-to-end to make a large piece of wood that will become our sign. How does one make a sign blank? Glad you asked. The above picture shows the board that we are using for the project after it has been cut to size and it has been trimmed on the table saw. We were contacted by Chip Roper of Roper Real Estate of Waterville Valley, NH back in June about making a sign for his new location, and we installed that sign Thursday, August 24th, right on schedule. Even with a job that had nothing to do with carving, we still use our ShopBot. We create all kinds of signs here at the Lincoln Sign Company, and with some of these signs, we actually don’t even need our ShopBot to do them! But here is the amazing thing, we still use it as a tool just like anything else in the shop, and the ShopBot seems to get used a little bit with everything we do, that’s how good it is. ![]()
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