Ideas on making this barnwood sign

[knight_toolworks]

I have a customer that wants me to make the faces for this sign. this is a rendering. his customer was a barnwood look and is willing to maintain it.
but gluing barnwood onto say a piece of dibond is not a great idea. I was thinking of planing the boards down to 1/8" to make it a veneer and epoxy it onto a piece of 1/4" dibond then coat the face in epoxy then use a uv protection on that. I would also seal the edges after I cut through the face.
does thsi sound like a good idea? would I need to laminate the backside too?

[bleeth]

I would do it with some nice Western Red Cedar planks.
I would use Sikkens for the finish so he would only have to put a new coat on every couple years with no prep beyond cleaning needed.
Epoxy on an outdoor sign face, even with a UV poly over it, is asking for trouble IMHO.
Of course, you could also texture sign foam and faux paint it with exterior latex.

[woodshop]

IMHO...

We would use a sheet of Maple plywood, 3/4" thick. That would be two sheets for this project.
1. Design the planks and cut them into the maple (to give the illusion of glued-up planks)
2. Spray or brush the finished sign with lamp black stain.
3. Sand off the lamp black with 220 grit (after it is dry).
4. Spray or brush with General Finishes Pewter Die.
5. Poly for a finish coat.

Here we have designed and cut a wine barrel using Maple playwood. You could design and cut the planks. Actually, you can get wood plank artwork from vectorstock.com.
32545

[knight_toolworks]

I had thought of that.I can't do the painting though my paint skills are nil. but I will throw both at him.


IMHO...

We would use a sheet of Maple plywood, 3/4" thick. That would be two sheets for this project.
1. Design the planks and cut them into the maple (to give the illusion of glued-up planks)
2. Spray or brush the finished sign with lamp black stain.
3. Sand off the lamp black with 220 grit (after it is dry).
4. Spray or brush with General Finishes Pewter Die.
5. Poly for a finish coat.

Here we have designed and cut a wine barrel using Maple playwood. You could design and cut the planks. Actually, you can get wood plank artwork from vectorstock.com.
http://www.talkshopbot.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=32545&stc=1

[zeykr]

I would glue up the wood, pocket the letter outline into the wood 1/4" or so, and apply letters cut from White PVC, signfoam, or even dibond so they stood slightly proud of the background. Like Dave I'd use a wood other than barnwood and finish with sikkens. Makes finishing easy - finish the wood separately, spray the letters white, then combine once all are finished.

[srwtlc]

If it's going to be for exterior display, you won't want to use maple. You know the customer won't always keep up with the maintenance schedule and maple will rot/spalt easily. White oak would be better than maple if going the solid wood route and exterior use.

Nice looking barrel design Woodshop!

[joe]

Congratulations on a neat little project.

We love this kind of work and it can be the fastest and easy if you go natural. The customer suggested barn-wood. That means the sign should look weathered, having some personality. It's a mistake to attempt to take fresh wood and apply aging techniques unless absolutely necessary.

A Local fence company may have plenty of weathered fence material left over from replacements. They would probably be happy for you to take off his hands. Yes it will have lots of cracks and knots from mother nature. Although you can glue these in place with E600 to MDO, there wouldn't be anything wrong with a few nails on the front side. I'd antique them and even bend a few over.

Like Ken suggests, light pocketing for 1/2" PVC would look good.

Painting: If you wanted to you leave it natural with a little clear coat would look good but keep in mind any top coat should be a little darker around the sides, edges and corners. If you're really serious, a thin coat of Pitch would look great. It's got to be seriously thinned down. This is most often used by the framing community over 23k gold.

I love Pitch.

Joe
www.normansignco.com (http://www.normansignco.com)

[joe]

Steve,

How what did you decide to use for the materials on this sign?
Would you please send a photo.

Joe

[knight_toolworks]

my customer has been dragging his feet. but we were going to use some of this flooring from home depot. but another sign customer told me about precision board with a wood grain texture pre painted.

[bleeth]

So when I retired from active cabinetry making a guy I had bought from locally took over my space.
Why would I post that here?
Check out his site: https://www.drvawood.com/
New solid alder boards finished in water based and distressed.
Product looks great in person but note that like genuine old planks is not dead flat like flooring.
Grain pattern is quite distinct.

[knight_toolworks]

ok finally customer got his stuff together. he is a new sign guy so he needs hand holding. I decided to go with wood as he is not skilled at painting I used west systems g flex epoxy to glue 1/8" cedar onto dibond. I used the metal side and sanded it well. man this epoxy stinks. but you see in the pic even with all that bending it is not coming loose. my customer will put semi transpartent stain on it and his customer knows they need to apply the stain through the years. Now I need to recut the letter centers as the a vanished. then I will be cutting the acrylic push through letters.

[joe]

Steve,

Nice looking sign.

Push through letters are good looking with light behind them. My only concern is moisture that will set around the letters which will cause the wood to swell or come apart. If the wood is plywood it's going to be a problem.

Best wishes.

Joe

[knight_toolworks]

these will be lighted. but they are going to use a gray stain on the wood so it wont contrast well. I was worried about wood movement too. so I used cedar and planed it down to 1/8" as thats the thickness wood does not move very much. then the flexible epoxy should help. I wanted to use e600 but You cant glue large surfaces that way. but I also told them the face may fail and they were ok with it. they also need ot use a deck stain on it on a regular basis.