My First Real Paying CNC Sign Job

[Georgia Design Works]

Hopefully I'm finally putting my PRSAlpha to work. Landed my first sign job. It's a lobby sign for a local company. Many lessons learned here and I hope to improve the process and am open to any criticism or advise. Attached is a picture of the layout they wanted and a picture of the final product that I installed today. Let me attempt to upload these pictures. I probably underpriced the job but am hoping it will spawn more work.
George
Lobby Sign1.jpgClifton Lobby Sign3.jpg

[RossMosh]

It's typically beneficially for everyone if you post materials/paints/process/ect when making a post like this.

As for pricing, especially on a job like this, Gemini is a very good reference. "Any" sign shop in the US can order from Gemini so you could use them as your pricing guide. That will keep you from giving it away or overcharging.

It looks very close to the photo and I like the way you added dimension to the block logo. The only thing else you should look into is a template for mounting. The kerning is not the same as the photo on the left, specifically on "Construction".

[Georgia Design Works]

Thank you RossMosh, and yes I am prepared to provide details ad naseum along with more pictures. I recently acquired my new PRSAlpha along with Aspire software to add to my woodshop. I already own a 75W laser so have much experience working with vectors in CorelDraw. The large lettering was CNC-cut from half inch BB ply. Thought about using pvc or acrylic but the customer was very picky about color and font to match their website logo. That meant getting a paint chip and having Sherwin Williams do a computer match. Small letters were laser cut from eigth inch BB, triple layered to build up to 3/8 inch. The large letters were fixed up with threaded rods and spacers to provide a standoff of 1/4 inch for added shadow detail. This hardware was purchased from Gemini who were more than happy to sell the hardware and offer some advice. But I did sense some disappointment from them when he learned that I was cutting my 14 inch letters out of .5 inch BB. He told me he never heard of any signmakers using BB for lettering and even joked that I need to sell my CNC and just buy the letters from them. That could have been a viable option at $25 - $30 a pop for each letter, but I needed to match the font for the customer and the CNC gave me the ability to choose from hundreds of fonts that I have in CorelDraw. Not to mention I already had several sheets of half inch ($29 a sheet). The 24 x 22 logo was Cnc cut from 1.5 inch PB, my first experience with this material. Bought a sheet of it for around $220. Sales guy offered a deep discount because it was one of the sheets that was slightly boogered on one edge. The stuff cuts like butter with an O-flute at 15500 rpm and 2 ips. I pocketed the block 1/4 inch deep to fit the "C" inserts made from 1/8th inch BB and .5 inch BB. Heres a few more pictures
GeorgeLobby Sign2.jpgLobby Sign3.jpgLobby Sign4.jpgLobby Sign10.jpg

[Georgia Design Works]

The PB and all parts were primed with three coats of Sam Cook Sign Primer, a product recommended to me by the PB sales guy. Then I attempted to use a textured spray paint (Krylon Super Maxx Hammered) to give a hammered metal appearance to the block of PB. Took almost three days for the three coats to dry hard with no tackiness. The logo inserts and large letters were painted burgundy with SW acrylic latex applied with a foam roller. It gave the surface a sort of stippled orange peel which I didn't like so I tried using a brush but that left brush marks that I thought looked worse. The small letters were HVLP sprayed with black lacquer over 3 coats of the primer. These small letters were mounted directly on the wall with screws and tabs of double-sided tape. The screws are hidden by the top layer. The letters are assemble from three layers. Bottom layer is glued to middle layer which has a couple of 3/8 inch holes laser cut into it. The little round pieces are superglued to the bottom of the painted top layer to make it easy to register it over. The first two layers are screwed and double taped to the wall, then the cover is double taped over it to hide the screw holes. Here's a few more pictures.
George
Lobby Sign8.jpgLobby Sign11.jpgLobby Sign12.jpg

[Georgia Design Works]

As seen in an earlier picture the back side of the PB block was pocketed to fit a piece of 3/4 inch plywood. This wood was glued in with that PB glue that is spritzed with water to activate. Was set, I screwed an aluminum french cleat into the wood backer.
I made use of Aspire's ability to export vectors to a .dxf file. I could then open this file in Corel and use my laser to cut craft paper templates with hole locations for each letter. These templates were lightly tacked to the back of the BB letters with 3M Super77. I counterbored some shallow holes for the threaded plastic tabs. These I glued in with silicon adhesive. The next day as I was threading the rods in, the tabs pulled out of the holes. Silicon cement did not adhere to the tabs. I then cleaned out the pockets and reglued tabs with 2 part epoxy with no further problems. The same vector file was finally used to cut full sized templates to mount on the customers wall for letter and stud placement. Once the holes were punched, I could take the paper template down and mount the letters. Stud holes were filled with silicon cement and the letters were pushed in. With 3-4 studs per each letter I got a good friction fit to hold em in place till the silicon sets up. As I said, the smaller letter were mounted directly to the wall with 2 screws each and tabs of doublesided tape.
Material cost breakdown:
1 sheet of 1.5 inch PB - $220 (only used a small 22x24 piece)
1 sheet .5 inch BB - $29
1 sheet of .125 BB - $14
gallon of Sam Cook primer and pb glue - $35
SW paint (quart of Sundried Tomato, quart of Dorian Gray) - $45
Then, of course, is the CNC and laser time. Most of the time was spent watching paint dry.
Install took about 30 minutes.
Now for the bottom line, and please don't beat me up. I charged the customer $600 for the job.
I admit I underestimated the material costs and in hindsight I would have been happier with $800.
But I was anxious for the work, and the exposure so was willing to give them a good price.
I hope in the end it pays off with more work.
GeorgeLobby Sign6.jpgLobby Sign13.jpgLobby Sign14.jpg

[barrowj]

I'm not a sign maker but the job looks awesome. If the customer is happy, then that is good advertising. You could look at you cost of the 1.5 inch differently as you only used less than 1/8 of the board which would bring down the cost for the job. You could always use the rest in another job or even sell it to another woodworker.

Search the forum for past discussion on costing this type of job, I know of several in the past year. There is good information there.

Joe

[scottp55]

Thanks for posting the step by step and the pics George.
Looks like you learned a lot.
NOT a sign guy, but looks under-priced for all your trouble.
It is nice to see money come in for the first time, isn't it
Congrats

[steve_g]

“It is nice to see money come in for the first time, isn't it”

It’s nice to see money come in anytime! The thrill is still there after many, many years!
SG

[Alex Naumenko]

Congrats on the first job.
First thing you have to watch you kerning. Logo on paper looks right. but on the wall it is off. Or maybe it just an angle of the shot.
Second you can paint PVC with any acrylic paint without primer. Sheet of 1/2 from HD $75 and you don't have to glue any pads or stuck multiple layers of BB.
To help you pricing letters next time look at gemini catalog at will be a good starting point.

[RossMosh]

For letters, the way I like to cut them is to cut them from the back and have the CNC drill all the holes. Coming from the laser, you'll have to get used to not having a sharp interior corner but you should be able to do most jobs with a 1/8" bit or 1/4" bit and get good results. I like using 1/8" bits but if you're doing a 12" 3/4" thick letter, that's excessive. Using the CNC to drill the holes for studs is a big time saver because all you have to do is glue the studs at the end. To get some space off the wall, gluing scrap to the letter is a common practice. Sometimes simply using VHB tape is enough to handle the job.

As for material, you're going to find a lot of materials to work with. Acrylic, PVC, "Dibond", Gatorfoam, wood, HDU, and aluminum are some of the most popular. I'd also look into MDF as an alternative to BB. You'll find it's cheaper than BB and offers almost all the same benefits as BB. Search for cabinet grade MDF. Medex and Uniboard are two examples I've used.

Also one site I've found helpful for pricing and material options is http://www.woodlandmanufacturing.com/.