Incised & Raised Letters

[joe]

Greeting friends,

We've been looking over the costs, for us, to produce signs with Incised letters, as compared to raised and it's been interesting. I'm not suggesting our pricing is any kind of a standard though.

Over the past year we have noticed that it takes allmost twice as long to do a raised letter signs as an incised one, and our sales are going in that way due to the cost savings.

We've been using Cedar, Redwood, HDU and Extira, for the most part. Our local Lowes is now stocking very nice 2" rough cedar at a very fair price. We also have been fortunate to have Extira, for smaller panels. HDU is slowly being phased out due to time of finishing and cost. It also takes special care for mounting.

Once a panel has been routed, and painted, it's ready for a quick filling of letters with colored epoxy. We use a big veterinary surrenge to fill the letters. Once filled, a light spray with denatured alchohol, for a glassy finish, and the sign is done.

Router Bits: I'm crazy for hard edged fat letter styles when doing incised. I use a flat 110 or 120 degree bit for visability. Also wide letters may require a thicker board. My bits are only 1.25" at the most, so I have to go to my chisels to chunk out the letter bottoms. I'm not a 3D buy. I don't mind, it's fun.

We've never been able to get Artcam to do acceptable prism letters on thick and thin letters, so we still do them by hand. I think it can be done with a 3D program but would take too long. After twenty years of hand carving, it's effecient.

I guess we still do more raised letter panels that anything else but:







O

[joe]

Sullivan2
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[bjenkins]

Joe,

Can you tell me more about the epoxy fill material and process. Do you literally fill the carved letter? Do you paint the sign first, then machine? Do you over-coat with a clear finish to ensure the edges of the letters are sealed?

By the way, nice looking work!

[billp]

Joe,
I don't know what the price on veterinary syringes is, but MAS epoxies sells their 60CC variety for $2.55 apiece, or 71 bucks for a 30 pack....here's a quick picture of one...
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www.masepoxies.com (http://www.masepoxies.com)

[joe]

Bud,

I think there are probably lots of ways to get this job done but this is our method.

No matter what substrate we use, it is primed and then painted with an initial coat.

Once routed, we seal the exposed raw wood with primer. When that is good and dry we do our finish coat on the complete sign including the letter wells. The last and final step is filling the letters with epoxy.

Bill's syringe is what we use most of the time, but I have seen mustard, ketchup squeeze bottles used as well. Sometimes when we have really big letters, that takes lots of epoxy, it is more effecient to use a tin can that has been squished to a point. It all depends somewhat on the size of letters.

Tip: We apply a 2" strip of masking or duct tape along the bottom of the letters. This allows us to move from letter to letter without fear of drips.

We pour a fat 3/16" of epoxy in each letter. This generally leaves a side wall of about 3/16" which is left the color of the background. No sealing necessary. If the wood is very porus, and routs roughly, we do a thin first coat, for leveling.

Our rough cedar signs bring in a higher profit than most any other, because they are so fast to do.

The Smith Charter Oaks sign posts are not painted. They are rough sawn 6"X6" white oak. We did two of these. One for each side of the drive.
All parts are routed with hand round over on the horse The posts are mortis and tenion, No Screws or bolts.

J
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[geneM (Unregistered Guest)]

Joe,
fantastic work

[alabama_davo]

I'm a bit puzzled, are you talking about Vee carving and then filling the letters with epoxy flush with the surface? The Charter Oaks sign looks to have raised letters...
Do you have a close-up of a before and after?

[joe]

Dave,

Thanks for the interest in the Charter Oaks signs.

Most of my signs are a combination of techniques. The Sullivan Chiropracitc is V carved for the most part, except for the Scottish Heraldic Symbol at the top. On the other hand the Charter Oak ranch sign has three techniques without any V carving.

The horses were profile cut from 1.5" HDU, then rounded over with rasp and chisel. The background behind the horse was also HDU.

I used a small round over bit, which has a tiny, tiny tip, almost a zero tip to do a profile on the letters and border to cut through sandblast mask. Then sandblast through my homemade grain grain. I'd be happy to take a photo of my Rube Goldburg homemade grain frame if your interested.

Finally, the copy "Smiths and address, were routed into Oak and filled with epoxy tinted black with 1 Shot lettering enamel.

I've often thought of takeing photo's along the way, from the start of a project. I am starting a new display sign next week this might to a good opportunity.

Hope this is answers your questions. I'm not very good with writing, so feel free to call. Allways glad to help.

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

I just found an old, old photo of a routed sign I made for the Greenbriar housing addition twenty three years ago. I believe it was 22' long. No Shopbots back then. All the letters were rounted into the rough cedar planks. I had to make a big plastic base for the router so it didn't drop down into the letter I was carving.

I thought I was king of the world. At my present age it wears me smooth out just to think about it.


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