Saint Mary's School Sign

[Keith Outten]

This is a Victorian style sign that I installed at Saint Mary's School yesterday. It is the first sign post that I have purchased from OPPC.com. The 22" by 28" panel is made from one quarter inch thick Dupont Corian (Cameo White). It was laser engraved and paint filled. The text at the bottom of the sign was cut on my vinyl cutter as it has to be replaced every year.

The sign post was made from very heavy aluminum, the fluted column is welded to a half inch thick ring that connects to concrete imbed bolts. All in all I am pleased with the post and I will surely be purchasing from this vendor again.

In the future I'm sure that we will add some kind of graphic to the top of the sign, at this point there has not been a decision made as to what would be appropriate.

[Gary Whitehair]

Great looking sign Keith!

[AL Ursich]

Very Nice Work !!!!

AL

[Keith Outten]

Thanks Gentlemen for the kind words.

This one hit the limit of my laser engraver as my table is 29" wide by 17" deep. To engrave the 22" width of the panel I had to drop the door in the front of the laser and the bottom of the graphic was right at the 17" depth of the table. Larger sign panels will have to be CNC Routed but I can't get this kind of detail with a router bit.
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[AL Ursich]

When I looked at it at first I thought it might be a Corian Lasered Inlay into a CNC pocket.... That might give you the best of both worlds for a bigger sign. The Shadow Lines would look good too.

AL

[Keith Outten]

Al,

I have used that technique a few times in the past but always with half inch thick Corian. The panel on this one is quarter inch thick, I guess an inlay is still possible if I machine the substrate material down to a one eighth inch deep pocket and insert a quarter inch thick engraved insert. This would give me a one eighth inch raised area and the shadow line you mentioned.
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[Rich Fennessey]

Looks good Keith! I see you're making use of that Trotec beast! I have quite a bit of the 1/4" corian and use if for more signs than I do the 1/2" thick. I recently found out that a bowl carving bit does a good job of giving a pretty smooth surface - but still leaves real shallow swirls.

[Keith Outten]

Thanks Rich,

How are you using the bowl carving bit?

I was originally going to vcarve this sign but it is located right on the water and will be exposed to a lot of storms and bad weather and I was concerned about the panel flexing. The bridge in the background of the picture is the access to Fort Monroe Army Base, past the bridge is the Chesapeake Bay. When hurricanes are heading our way the post is easy to remove, just four nuts to remove from the concrete embed rods so the sign can be moved inside.
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[Rich Fennessey]

I recently started using the bowl carving 1 1/4" bit for hogging out .15" from cutting boards. I'll rough .12" out using a 1/2" flat bit then use the 1 1/4" bowl bit to remove the last .03". In the past, I've had flat bottom part of my lettering on corian signs show the circular cuts from either a spiral bit or flat bottom bit. If you can fit a small (5/8" outer diameter is smallest I've found) bowl carving bit in the lettering, then I suspect you could use it to minimize the circular marks. Unfortunately, it wont fit in those tight areas but would be good for larger signs where it would fit in most of the letter. For letters on 1/4" corian, I'll only pocket the letters .05" deep. Your sign lettering looks too narrow to use a 5/8" bowl bit.

[Keith Outten]

Originally I planned to vcarve this sign but the logo has so much detail laser engraving turned out to be the best choice. The number of tool paths that would have been necessary and the tool changes would have increased the time significantly as well. I think the engraving time was about 38 minutes.

I would use more quarter inch thick Corian if it wasn't for the need to use a keyhole bit to hang my signs. I guess it is mostly the style of signs that I make the most that drives the numbers. I have used French Cleats for large signs that are attached to walls in the past and that works well and it is more stable than just a couple of screws in keyholes. I try my best not to use visible fasteners even if it costs me more time, however there are times and material types that it just isn't possible.

[Keith Outten]

Rich,

I'm going to keep the bowl bits in mind for projects down the road.
Thanks