Terry Hatfields Sign Finished

[Keith Outten]

Although it took forever to get Terry's sign finished it really turned out nice. Several people have seen it and all of them gave me the "Wow, that sign is awesome" response so I'm pretty sure at this point that TH will be happy.

Terry's sign is two pieces of half inch Corian, a dark gray backer and a white top piece. This was my first time using the Corian adhesive kit, I was a bit unsure concerning the application time and it probably took much longer to setup my template and mix the adhesive than it should have. I took extra care since I didn't know how much working time I had, good thing as it was stuck almost immediately.

It took about 3 hours to prep and polish the gray backing piece, I used a ROS for the flat surface and buffing wheels for the edges. The white piece was left unpolished as it provides more contrast. The engraved area took about two hours in the machine and since I don't have a ShopBot CNC router as yet I used a band saw to cut the pieces and spindle sander to clean-up the edges. I haven't weighed Terry's sign yet but it is very heavy, in the future I will be sure to cut and remove the center of the backer which should reduce the weight substantially.

Jackie will be shipping Terry's sign hopefully tomorrow. Terry I'm sorry it took so long to complete your project...I'm afraid that the Freedom Pens Project has just about taken over my workshop these days. Now on to the Old Rebel's sign

[mike wallis]

Looks great Keith. Once you get the Shop Bot it will reduce the time greatly on projects like this.
Question, did you use a rounter on the edging and if you did does it require a special bit?

Mike

[Keith Outten]

Mike,

Carbide router bits work just fine, however I would recommend that you use high quality bits. Corian will show every little detail of the bit edge when routed, you will rarely find this to be a problem with wood. The good news is that Corian doesn't burn and a slower feed rate is possible without fear of burning. A slow feed rate will give you a very smooth surface requiring little or no sanding.

A ShopBot is definately in my future. As soon as I obtain the necessary work load for the machine I will order it without hesitation, untill then I will have to keep using my band saw. I am thinking about designing and building a polishing machine for my shop to help with the Corian work. It shouldn't be difficult to come up with something that will decrease the time it takes to polish Corian...I hope

[Dick Parr]

Very nice Keith, he should be one happy woodworker.

[Shaddy Dedmore]

That came out great.
For polishing/sanding, you should into Festool. They have a dual mode RS150E ROS that attaches to a vacuum, little to no dust. It also has a 'eccentric' mode that disables the rotary part, and acts like a regular finish sander, maybe slightly more aggressive though. Very good dust collection design.

I just got some corian samples, what's a good way to practice, what's a good design. I only have two 12"x12" samples (light and dark) and don't want to waste them working on samples that aren't practical.

Can you do photo stuff, or should I stick to line art/text.

Thanks, and nice job.

[Keith Outten]

Shaddy,

Don't save the Corian you have just use it...there is so much free Corian scraps available at local cabinet shops and counter top specialty stores that you will always have a huge supply of Corian. I have hundreds of pounds of the stuff in lots of colors. You will find that sink cut-outs are just the right size for your engraver and recently I have been heat-bending Corian.

Photographs are definately an option, you must dither your photos before engraving them. Look at Ron Smith's thread for a photo we did for him recently.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthre...t=Corian+photo

[Terry Hatfield]

Keith,

WOW!!!!! That looks SUPER!!!! Thanks so very much for making it for me!!! I can't wait to get it in the shop. I'll be sure to post some pics when it gets here.

Thanks again,

t