Materials

[john_david]

OK I remember someone talking about a plywood that was made for or worked good for V carving pictures into it.It had a darker inner core,
anyone out there that can help me find this product or a distributer??

Thanks in advance

JD

[billp]

JD,
I had posted a picture on the Flickr Camp photo page of a product we found in England called "Colour Rout" which is a dyed MDF core with a thin veneer of plywood bonded to it's surface. A number of the images you see on the Vectric page (James Dean, etc.) were "photo carved" using this material. I am not sure if they have an American distributor...

[john_david]

Thanks Bill I will see what I can find or make my own using methods you incouraged me (us) to do at the camp this weekend.
Thanks again for all the knowlege and information

JD

[zeykr]

I've emailed the maker of 'colour rout' a couple times to see if they had a us distributor, but have not gotten a response either try.

[lto]

http://www.greatlakesmdf.com/spectratech.php produces colored MDF. Possibly one of their distributers would add the veneer.

We have found that maple veneer over regular MDF makes for a nice V Carving after stain is applied.

[bleeth]

This has US distribution:
http://www.interlam-design.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=binders.content&menuID=4

If you go through their web site you will probably come up with some interesting marketing and machining ideas.

[billp]

JD,
I went through the stack of business cards I usually collect while on the road, and found one for the company who manufactures "Colour Rout". Their web page is; http://www.moranswoodcomponents.co.uk/
Maybe they can direct you to a US distributor

[mziegler]

Since I don’t have access to colored mdf and Colour Rout goods I have been using laminate flooring. The stuff routs and carve real good. It has mdf like core which paints and stained like mdf. I can post pictures of projects when I get some time to mess with reducing picture file size. Mark

[mikek]

Mark, here is a real good resizing program and it is free. Only takes a minute to install and use. Load your picture, change the "custom size" to 500 x whatever and it will fit here to upload.
http://bluefive.pair.com/pixresizer.htm

Here is a blurb from their readme file:

PIXresizer is a tool for quickly generating screen-friendly versions of
your images with dramatically reduced file sizes. It is a photo resizing
program that enables you to quickly resize one file or a selection of
image files for use on the web and in e-mail. The reduced files are saved
in a different directory, so your original pictures are not changed.

The program offers several different resizing methods to choose from and
can automatically recognize image sizes to calculate the best fit.
PIXresizer includes a built-in image viewer and you can also convert
between graphics formats: it opens and saves in .bmp, .gif, .jpg, .png,
and .tif formats. A great companion for webmasters and digital
photographers.

[mziegler]

Thanks Mike, that’s great little program. Much easier that using Corel Draw. This is the great thing about the forum is the great tidbits we share. Mark

[mziegler]

Here’s a sign I routed from 3 pieces of laminate flooring. Mark

Off the router.

8714
Snap apart.

8715
Painted.

8716

[mikejohn]

Mark
It's a nice sign
Always worth using the spell checker before cutting, though


..........Mike

[brian_h]

Oh, that's gotta hurt. I'm just hoping weclome means welcome in Dutch or German or something, and this is a Dutch or German Bar.

Mark, it really is a beautiful sign and I like the use of materials. Great idea!

[myxpykalix]

Well he will only have to redo 1/3 of the sign. Very clever use of the flooring material I would have never thought of that!

[mziegler]

Thats happens! Mark

[mziegler]

Which give to the thought of making the sign changeable. The customize part of the sign can be change with a new name or whatever. The non customize parts of the sign can be routed and painted ahead of time and the customize part routed and painted as the orders come in. Just a thought. Mark

[brian_h]

...And from a mistake, another great idea is born.

[chris_booth]

An example that supports the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention".

[joe]

You guys leave Mark alone. He's proven to me, he'll make a good sign man. This is just part of the initiation ritual.

As a sign artist, I've done worse. Doing a quicky window splash job, one winter evening, at my local cleaners, using a 2" fitch, I slaped on, "STRACHED SHITS" 89 cents, This week only.

I got a call the next morning!


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

[joe]

You guys leave Mark alone. He's proven to me, he'll make a good sign man. This is just part of the initiation ritual.

As a sign artist, I've done worse. Doing a quicky window splash job, one winter evening, at my local cleaners, using a 2" fitch, I lettered.

"STRACHED SHITS" 89 cents, This week only.

I got a call the next morning!


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

[myxpykalix]

Ok maybe i'm slow....."scratched shits"...what was it supposed to say?

[brian_h]

I'm guessing starched shirts.

[joe]

Brian,

Yep!

[myxpykalix]

did you do the sign for "Pip boys cleaners"? any of you guys who are at least 50 BETTER know what that refers to....woop, woop, woop!