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Bobbie and I are driving to San Antonio, Texas in a few days for my granddaughter's HS graduation. We'll be staying with old friends who also live there; he's going through treatments for cancer and she's not in great shape. I wanted to make a little something for them and, after viewing Leo's video about doing his "Family" plaque, what I came up with is shown below.
I wanted to use a light colored wood, so I used some clear pine and glued up two lengths to get the width I needed. I cut a piece of adhesive-backed vinyl paint mask and carefully applied it to the board as I removed the backing.
I did the cut in two steps. First, the frame was formed using a point cutting round over bit. Next, I mounted a 1/2" 90° V bit to create the field lettering and graphics. After separating the plaque from the board, I sanded the edges, then sprayed it with EM1028 in which I put several colors of Transtint dyes to get a warm dark brown. I let the sealer firm up for a couple of hours, then pealed off the vinyl mask.
Now, as much discussion as there has been about CNC software, the way I started this is a bit different. I knew I could use F-Engrave to create the V-carve code for the field using a bitmap file. I've used PrintMaster for decades to make posters, cards, etc., so I started my initial layout on it. Combining various text and graphic elements is what PM is all about, so I got what I wanted with a little help from Bobbie on some of the wording. I tweaked the layout a couple of times, then got what I needed from F-Engrave. I used SketchUp/SketchUcam to create the frame. After verifying all dimensions, I set up Universal Gcode Sender to run the frame code first, then changed bits and had it run the field code.
Edit: I sprayed a couple of topcoats of EM6000 semi-gloss.
Thanks for looking. Comments welcomed!
I wanted to use a light colored wood, so I used some clear pine and glued up two lengths to get the width I needed. I cut a piece of adhesive-backed vinyl paint mask and carefully applied it to the board as I removed the backing.
I did the cut in two steps. First, the frame was formed using a point cutting round over bit. Next, I mounted a 1/2" 90° V bit to create the field lettering and graphics. After separating the plaque from the board, I sanded the edges, then sprayed it with EM1028 in which I put several colors of Transtint dyes to get a warm dark brown. I let the sealer firm up for a couple of hours, then pealed off the vinyl mask.
Now, as much discussion as there has been about CNC software, the way I started this is a bit different. I knew I could use F-Engrave to create the V-carve code for the field using a bitmap file. I've used PrintMaster for decades to make posters, cards, etc., so I started my initial layout on it. Combining various text and graphic elements is what PM is all about, so I got what I wanted with a little help from Bobbie on some of the wording. I tweaked the layout a couple of times, then got what I needed from F-Engrave. I used SketchUp/SketchUcam to create the frame. After verifying all dimensions, I set up Universal Gcode Sender to run the frame code first, then changed bits and had it run the field code.
Edit: I sprayed a couple of topcoats of EM6000 semi-gloss.
Thanks for looking. Comments welcomed!
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