Here's something I just finished up...I don't do too many signs per se, but every now and then I get asked for one. Usually it is a rush job for a friend (like this one). For the sign pros out there this probably is old hat, but here's how I did the piece:

1) painted the entire blank the base green color (spray can exterior enamel from the hardware store - it dries really fast)

2) after the enamel dried, applied avery mask and carved the name. While the piece was still on the bot, I hit the lettering with metallic gold spray paint

3) re-masked the whole piece and carved the horse with a z scaling factor of .5 (you'll see why later).

4) peeled off the horse mask and shot the white coat

5) re-masked the job and carved the horse with full Z scale and hand painted the black areas.

6) Clear coated the whole mess with exterior acrylic.

The whole process took several days since I had to allow drying times between masking.

The final acrylic coat had an interesting reaction with the carved letters - it seemed to raise the grain a bit (the substrate was a glued up pine board). At first I was quite disappointed, but the rough texture actually added some interesting "shimmer" effects within the gold as light falls on the sign.

(BTW, the toolpathing was done with VCARVE and the sign dimensions are 22" x 11.5")


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