Military Unit Crest For Conference Room

[Georgia Design Works]

I do quite a bit of work out at the local military base, even though they seem to be broke lately. Hopefully that will improve after November. I got a call last week from some young captain who saw some work I did for another unit and got my name. She is wanting me to do a large unit crest for display in their video teleconferencing room. She sent a jpg file as I requested of the crest. As usual it was a low res graphic that necessitated me to manually draw all the vectors. The below attachments are the origanal graphic sent to me, and the vectors I drew from it.
CCOE Crest 1.jpgCCOE Crest 2.jpg
Before meeting the customer today I wanted to have something to show her besides just pictures of previous work. Decided last weekend to do a "quick" mockup (16" diameter). I can always use extra samples in my shop. Decided to use half inch MDF (Plum Creek Glacier Green). I have had mixed results lately with MDF. Some of it cuts nicely, others will shred on me like layered paper. The local Home Depot used to sell "Premium" MDF. That stuff was pretty good but for some reason they discontinued ordering it. The Plum Creek stuff I found at my lumber dealer in Atlanta (Hardwoods Inc) and they assured me it was "furniture grade" and the thicker panels are used for making fake raised panel doors. Anyway, after trying the stuff in does cut clean.
More pictures to follow in next post.
George

[Georgia Design Works]

The main body of this crest is made from the MDF described in my earlier post. I used a plunge roundover bit with a 3/16 radius from Eagle America (#139-0605) to profile/round the three outside circles. The inner circle was then pocketed to a depth of 1/4 inch, then outside circle was cut to a depth of .4 to leave a skin instead of using tabs. I didn't want to remove the circle from the square piece because I intended to put it back in the CNC after painting. The MDF piece was primed with Jay Cooke Sign Primer, and the outer ring hand painted with Liquitex artists acrylic black. The inner ring was painted with yellow acrylic as a base color for later application of MM #194 sheer gold. After the painted dried overnight I applied a mask on the outer ring and v-carve the lettering in the CNC. I been using a plastic contact paper from Walmart called "magic cover". I think it is used for shelf lining, but I have had pretty good luck with the stuff to mask off v-carving.
After v-carving I painted lettering with more primer, yellow paint and then MM 194 gold.

The attached pictures show the finished product.
The center graphic was cut from 1/8 inch baltic birch plywood using my 75w Epilog laser. Background was hand painted with liquitex acrylic paint (like you buy a Hobby Lobby in tubes). And detailing was added with an airbrush. The vector graphics were used to cut stencils of various parts to assist in airbrushing. These are techniques that are all new to me so I am still learning. The tiny lettering was actually cut out using the laser. The laser leaves a kerf about .003" so is great for these small cutouts. The loose pieces and letters can be painted separately and then reassembled like a puzzle. It makes for clean paint lines.
I love the dimensional look of these crests when I use a combination of materials and techniques. I think it sure beats a vinyl sticker put on a piece of foam core. My customer agreed and she ordered a 36" diameter crest from me today.
George

[scottp55]

Beautiful Work!
It's going to make a great shop sample!!
Thank you for going into the details(especially MDF quality)
Not surprised you got the job

[steve_g]

George…
MDF… a blessing and a curse!
The stuff they sell at the big box stores and call MDF is definitely the latter! In my part of the world, Plumb creek is a consistent, high quality product, surpassed only by the slightly water resistant Medex. Some parts of the country can actually get a water proof version called Exteria.
Whatever version you cut, be sure to use good dust collection AND a respirator!
SG

[dmidkiff]

Excellent work!! It's always an honor to do something for our military.

[guitarwes]

Excellent work and artistic touches with different materials. You're just right up the road from me from Statesboro.