Thinking of doing some crafts and signs for Xmas Bazars???

[gundog]

This is outside what I have been doing for the last 10 years with my router tables. I retired in January from my day job and started running my Marine Products business full time. Every year for the 10 years I have been in business I have about a 3 month slow period where my business goes to almost zero. In the past when I worked another job that time of the year was a great break but now that I make my living making things I am thinking of switching gears for a couple months and making craft type stuff.

My wife and I are not new to this we used to have a craft booth at a crafters mall about 20 years ago and we did fairly well for side money. This was way before I had any CNC machines I cut stuff out on a band saw and scroll saw and made bird houses and such. My wife is a pretty good artist and she would do all the finish work.

I am not sure what the point of my post is but I am thinking of giving this a shot. I routinely cut plastic and aluminum but I don't do much wood working with my CNC router. I have both vacuum clamping and an extruded clamping area I could clamp boards to. I could use some beginner type info on bits for making signs and cutting wood. I have a supply of some hard woods and some soft woods.

I could also use some info on how to hone my CNC wood working skills and sign making techniques. If anyone has any videos or other training info besides the Vectric tutorials they could point me to that would be great.

My wife mostly does folk art type stuff and I thought some nice carved signs with holiday themes might do well.

I own an older version of Aspire but I noticed the free clip art would not work for me because I needed to sign some license but could not find the license to sign. I also read the clip art was not for commercial use so where do I get some good clip art that I can use to not violate any copy right stuff.

Thanks Mike

[myxpykalix]

Sounds to me like you're just looking for "affirmation" with your post...:)
You clearly have the talent and the time so i say "go for it!" I have been self employed since i was 18 years old and as such many times it was either feast or famine, but i wouldn't have done anything different. So just go out and do it!

[gundog]

I guess my post was all over the place what I am looking for is a good source for clip art in DXF form that I don't have to trace and fix ready to use I am willing to pay and also some fonts that are more simple in nature that carve well with either a v carve bit or a ball mill. I don't have much experience with fonts and clip art a search is all over the place with many choices and some of it is not that good. Also what size and angle V bits should I get I have one that came in my starter kit years ago when I bought my Shopbot I think it is a 1" 60* V bit it is the only one I have. For fonts I am looking for primitive type fonts to add to what I have.

Thanks Mike

[steve_g]

Mike…
The Mega collections sold by ShopBot are a reasonable place to start your clipart collection. The good part about them is that they are clean, scale-able vectors. This means you can use just a portion of one of their images, or add them together easily. The bad thing about them is there is no good way to search digitally for a particular item or theme.
Other clipart sources can be found on eBay. Remember, vectors are vectors! Art marketed to vinyl sign people and plasma people work for you also!
Most fonts on your computer will V-Carve nicely… occasionally you will get one that has crossed vectors and will either not be usable or require editing. There are any number of sources for free fonts, the free fonts will have a greater likelihood of having issues… For quality for pay fonts, look at http://www.letterheadfonts.com/

SG

[myxpykalix]

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/clip-art 15.00-99.00 all types of designs, fonts, you name it....

[chiloquinruss]

Mike I've been in your shop and seen your work. You will have no problem adapting your skill set to doing some crafts work. I would look at cutting boards and the like first, then look at some kitcheny type signs. Scroll down to the sign threads and reread some of Joe's great threads on the results from using various bits and substrates, good stuff. The issue with fonts is to not get to fancy, after all the words carved MUST be readable. Good luck and congrats on your retirement, welcome aboard! Russ

[feinddj]

Try Dover books. They have many out now with a cd included that has all the designs in the book.

[steve_g]

Dover books… Good source! I buy them at “Half Priced Books”, a Texas second hand book chain…
SG

[gundog]

Thank you for the info I never knew about the mega collections.

Mike

[gundog]

Mike I've been in your shop and seen your work. You will have no problem adapting your skill set to doing some crafts work. I would look at cutting boards and the like first, then look at some kitcheny type signs. Scroll down to the sign threads and reread some of Joe's great threads on the results from using various bits and substrates, good stuff. The issue with fonts is to not get to fancy, after all the words carved MUST be readable. Good luck and congrats on your retirement, welcome aboard! Russ


Thanks Russ.

[genek]

This is outside what I have been doing for the last 10 years with my router tables. I retired in January from my day job and started running my Marine Products business full time. Every year for the 10 years I have been in business I have about a 3 month slow period where my business goes to almost zero. In the past when I worked another job that time of the year was a great break but now that I make my living making things I am thinking of switching gears for a couple months and making craft type stuff.

My wife and I are not new to this we used to have a craft booth at a crafters mall about 20 years ago and we did fairly well for side money. This was way before I had any CNC machines I cut stuff out on a band saw and scroll saw and made bird houses and such. My wife is a pretty good artist and she would do all the finish work.

I am not sure what the point of my post is but I am thinking of giving this a shot. I routinely cut plastic and aluminum but I don't do much wood working with my CNC router. I have both vacuum clamping and an extruded clamping area I could clamp boards to. I could use some beginner type info on bits for making signs and cutting wood. I have a supply of some hard woods and some soft woods.

I could also use some info on how to hone my CNC wood working skills and sign making techniques. If anyone has any videos or other training info besides the Vectric tutorials they could point me to that would be great.

My wife mostly does folk art type stuff and I thought some nice carved signs with holiday themes might do well.

I own an older version of Aspire but I noticed the free clip art would not work for me because I needed to sign some license but could not find the license to sign. I also read the clip art was not for commercial use so where do I get some good clip art that I can use to not violate any copy right stuff.

Thanks Mike

Mike you may want to make some cutting boards in the shape of your state. I can not keep enough of Ky cutting boards in stock.. all of my customers order them in lot of 12 or more. These you could also sale to your regular customers,, make some fish cutting boards as well.