Digitalwoodshop
04-27-2011, 08:39 PM
Here is a Fun Project that has taken time due to some Zoning delays and the Winter but was delivered today. Made with the CW and Corel Draw. If I were to do it again, the bigger letter or the whole project would have been done using a Vinyl Plotter and a jig saw.
To start taking on the "Responsibility" of designing a Sign for a Business is a complicated process. The days of slapping up a Sign, any Sign in most locations requires Permits and Zoning Approval. So the most important part was getting the Square Footage of the Sign Correct the FIRST time as a Sign in Violation can cost the Building Owner upward of $500.00 per day in violation, so to proceed with caution would be an understatement. Guess who the Building Owner will get the Fine Money from.... Lawyers would be involved.... I minimized my risk by working with the Owner, the Zoning Officer and Supplying Accurate and Clear Paperwork. I also let the Owner do the install by either hiring a Carpenter or just letting her Hubby do it... I don't do installation of signs on buildings... Something as simple as a Air Nail shot into the building to hold the Sign Letters to the Wood Building and the nail pierces a electrical wire running on the other side of the wall and the building burns down..... Worst case here but a possibility...
Never less, I took on this First Sign project after getting some Advice from the Signs 101 Forum.
I placed a 4 foot long cardboard box at the foot of the building and took a picture of the building.
I then brought the picture into Corel Draw, my Art Program for My Laser, Vinyl Plotter and Sublimation.
I made a 4 inch x 1 Inch rectangle in Corel Draw and made the picture bigger and bigger until the 4 inch rectangle fit the 4 foot box in the picture. That lets me use the Scale Factor of 1 inch in Corel Draw = 1 Foot of the Building. For Cars on Signs 101 they make magnetic rulers and targets along with Software that does this automatically for High End Graphics. The 4 foot Florescent Light Box is the POOR Mans Cheat.
Next is find a Font that the Customer likes.... She wanted something with "Tails" on it as this is a Alpaca Gift Store... I searched for almost 10 hours on different Font Sites downloading each font that I thought might be the one she liked.... finally got one.... Amery, so much for the Tails......
Then we had the required text and some ideas..... Another 20 hours of Design Work later and I had 20 versions of layouts taking in consideration the Limit on the Square Footage of Sign I could make and still pass Zoning. The Scale Factor of the Art let me manually calculate the Square Footage for each design.
In the end She decided on the Design as seen in the Photo. Copies of all my artwork and calculations and the building picture was given to the Zoning Officer for review. Back and fourth a few times between the 3 of us we had a final design. The small signs by the door were the sticking point and when the numbers worked we had a Tentative Approval.... This takes me OFF THE HOOK.....
Now for Sign Material.... Had many options.... Decided on using PVC Board in the 1 x 12 or (.75 x 11.25)
Now to get the sign letters into CW Designer.... I made a 14.5 x 12 foot board and typed the letters just as they would be using the same font. I made the letters the required size, the big Kuhn letters being 17 inches high x 6 feet and the smaller 9 inches high and 12 feet and about 5 feet long.
I then typed 1 single letter and made it the same size as the Word Letters, placing it on top of the word. This gave me the proper Scale Factor for THAT letter. I copied it and pasted it into a NEW board 11.25 x 68 inches long. This left me my 4 inches on the board to stay under the back roller. I designed in the front 4 inches on the right side of Designer. I had cut the 2 Eighteen Foot PVC Boards into 6 foot sections to fit the machine for WEIGHT as the PVC Board is very HEAVY. Later with the 13.5 inch wide boards I cut them into 2 projects with the heaviest being 45 inches.... The Machine Struggled with the heavy board but did a GREAT JOB.
I then took that single letter on my Cut Out board and placed it in location and outlined it. I then assigned the Cut Path to the letter. I then deleted the letter leaving only the Cut Path. I did this for every letter. The Challenge was the 17 inch K.... I ended up making some 13.5 inch boards out of strips and some new PVC Primer and Glue. The K would be Doubled to allow me to overlap the joint for stability. The 2nd set of 13.5 inch boards with the double K parts is not in the picture of the boards as I had not cut it yet and wanted to start finishing the smaller letters.
Letters cut and sanded and rounded over and I was ready for delivery. A new Quality Air Filter Mask made a BIG Difference with all the white PVC Dust. ChrisAlb visited and there was White Dust all over my Work deck and Shop. As I type this tonight he is back on the Road again.
I used my Vinyl Plotter and Corel Draw with blank newsprint installed and the Pen rather than the Knife to print out a Scaled Lettering for the Owner to use. If I were to do the job, I would mount the paper on the building and place each letter on the paper in the correct location and use a AIR Nailer with Stainless Steel or Galvanized Nails to mount them to the wood building in the picture. The Building has been painted since the picture was taken and the Text you see on the Building is Corel Draw including the OPEN sign in the Window.
IF I were to do this job again, I might opt to just cut some cheap sticky Vinyl and place the letters on the PVC Boards one at a time in a more Frugal use of the PVC Board and use a Scroll Saw or Jig Saw to cut them out.... Anyone with a plotter could have done this job...
Guys doing this job on Signs 101 or Sawmill Creek would use Stainless Steel Screws screwed into the back of each letter sticking out a inch or so. Place the letters on the paper printout and mark the screw location. Tape the paper to the Cement Wall and Drill a hole for each screw. Later working on one letter at a time use RTV in the hole or Epoxy and push each letter into the drilled holes using just the holes for a guide. One guy posted that the installer had failed to use Stainless Steel Screws and after a time the Steel Screws Rusted and since the Exposed Fire House White Wall had running rust from the water getting in behind the letters. So lessons learned.... use Stainless Steel Hardware..... And remember if that letters falls off the building and crashed into the windshield of a Fire Truck or Car and YOU did the Install..... Well... Lucky YOU.... That is why I don't do installiations.... Not in my Business Plan....
Good Luck and lets see other money making CW Opportunities...
AL
To start taking on the "Responsibility" of designing a Sign for a Business is a complicated process. The days of slapping up a Sign, any Sign in most locations requires Permits and Zoning Approval. So the most important part was getting the Square Footage of the Sign Correct the FIRST time as a Sign in Violation can cost the Building Owner upward of $500.00 per day in violation, so to proceed with caution would be an understatement. Guess who the Building Owner will get the Fine Money from.... Lawyers would be involved.... I minimized my risk by working with the Owner, the Zoning Officer and Supplying Accurate and Clear Paperwork. I also let the Owner do the install by either hiring a Carpenter or just letting her Hubby do it... I don't do installation of signs on buildings... Something as simple as a Air Nail shot into the building to hold the Sign Letters to the Wood Building and the nail pierces a electrical wire running on the other side of the wall and the building burns down..... Worst case here but a possibility...
Never less, I took on this First Sign project after getting some Advice from the Signs 101 Forum.
I placed a 4 foot long cardboard box at the foot of the building and took a picture of the building.
I then brought the picture into Corel Draw, my Art Program for My Laser, Vinyl Plotter and Sublimation.
I made a 4 inch x 1 Inch rectangle in Corel Draw and made the picture bigger and bigger until the 4 inch rectangle fit the 4 foot box in the picture. That lets me use the Scale Factor of 1 inch in Corel Draw = 1 Foot of the Building. For Cars on Signs 101 they make magnetic rulers and targets along with Software that does this automatically for High End Graphics. The 4 foot Florescent Light Box is the POOR Mans Cheat.
Next is find a Font that the Customer likes.... She wanted something with "Tails" on it as this is a Alpaca Gift Store... I searched for almost 10 hours on different Font Sites downloading each font that I thought might be the one she liked.... finally got one.... Amery, so much for the Tails......
Then we had the required text and some ideas..... Another 20 hours of Design Work later and I had 20 versions of layouts taking in consideration the Limit on the Square Footage of Sign I could make and still pass Zoning. The Scale Factor of the Art let me manually calculate the Square Footage for each design.
In the end She decided on the Design as seen in the Photo. Copies of all my artwork and calculations and the building picture was given to the Zoning Officer for review. Back and fourth a few times between the 3 of us we had a final design. The small signs by the door were the sticking point and when the numbers worked we had a Tentative Approval.... This takes me OFF THE HOOK.....
Now for Sign Material.... Had many options.... Decided on using PVC Board in the 1 x 12 or (.75 x 11.25)
Now to get the sign letters into CW Designer.... I made a 14.5 x 12 foot board and typed the letters just as they would be using the same font. I made the letters the required size, the big Kuhn letters being 17 inches high x 6 feet and the smaller 9 inches high and 12 feet and about 5 feet long.
I then typed 1 single letter and made it the same size as the Word Letters, placing it on top of the word. This gave me the proper Scale Factor for THAT letter. I copied it and pasted it into a NEW board 11.25 x 68 inches long. This left me my 4 inches on the board to stay under the back roller. I designed in the front 4 inches on the right side of Designer. I had cut the 2 Eighteen Foot PVC Boards into 6 foot sections to fit the machine for WEIGHT as the PVC Board is very HEAVY. Later with the 13.5 inch wide boards I cut them into 2 projects with the heaviest being 45 inches.... The Machine Struggled with the heavy board but did a GREAT JOB.
I then took that single letter on my Cut Out board and placed it in location and outlined it. I then assigned the Cut Path to the letter. I then deleted the letter leaving only the Cut Path. I did this for every letter. The Challenge was the 17 inch K.... I ended up making some 13.5 inch boards out of strips and some new PVC Primer and Glue. The K would be Doubled to allow me to overlap the joint for stability. The 2nd set of 13.5 inch boards with the double K parts is not in the picture of the boards as I had not cut it yet and wanted to start finishing the smaller letters.
Letters cut and sanded and rounded over and I was ready for delivery. A new Quality Air Filter Mask made a BIG Difference with all the white PVC Dust. ChrisAlb visited and there was White Dust all over my Work deck and Shop. As I type this tonight he is back on the Road again.
I used my Vinyl Plotter and Corel Draw with blank newsprint installed and the Pen rather than the Knife to print out a Scaled Lettering for the Owner to use. If I were to do the job, I would mount the paper on the building and place each letter on the paper in the correct location and use a AIR Nailer with Stainless Steel or Galvanized Nails to mount them to the wood building in the picture. The Building has been painted since the picture was taken and the Text you see on the Building is Corel Draw including the OPEN sign in the Window.
IF I were to do this job again, I might opt to just cut some cheap sticky Vinyl and place the letters on the PVC Boards one at a time in a more Frugal use of the PVC Board and use a Scroll Saw or Jig Saw to cut them out.... Anyone with a plotter could have done this job...
Guys doing this job on Signs 101 or Sawmill Creek would use Stainless Steel Screws screwed into the back of each letter sticking out a inch or so. Place the letters on the paper printout and mark the screw location. Tape the paper to the Cement Wall and Drill a hole for each screw. Later working on one letter at a time use RTV in the hole or Epoxy and push each letter into the drilled holes using just the holes for a guide. One guy posted that the installer had failed to use Stainless Steel Screws and after a time the Steel Screws Rusted and since the Exposed Fire House White Wall had running rust from the water getting in behind the letters. So lessons learned.... use Stainless Steel Hardware..... And remember if that letters falls off the building and crashed into the windshield of a Fire Truck or Car and YOU did the Install..... Well... Lucky YOU.... That is why I don't do installiations.... Not in my Business Plan....
Good Luck and lets see other money making CW Opportunities...
AL