Design this logo into 2 mpc's?

[Rob Mulgrew]

77226I believe this is an easy thing to do for some of you experienced pattern makers but I've never designed a project that has to be carved in halves. If anyone can help out with this pattern creation that would be great. If one of you guys who make professional quality patterns want to do this for me send me a PM with what you would charge. It needs to be in a top .mpc and bottom .mpc.
The overall size needs to be 22" wide by 36" long. Its going outside and needs to be visible from the road so I'm thinking doing a outline of the top letters as large as possible and just a basic vector carve with a 90 v bit for the rest of the lettering? The logo can be adjusted as to make the oval and lettering as big as possible. The oval would just be outlined with a 90v bit, the brown on the sides of the logo would be a natural wood grain and the logo were going to paint in the green and white. I'll run it on the standard 11.25" width of store bought boards. Thoughts? Suggestions? Take a shot at it?
Thank!
77227This is the pdf version, not sure how the quality of photos is coming out. I can a high quality version if you message me.

[zan29]

Here's your pattern and someone else will be able to set you up.
I've never done big carves before so I'll let a pro do it.
77228

[aokweld101]

In order not to cut threw the lettering I used 2 of the 12" boards and 1- 6" board and made the pattern 21.75 x 36.00 ... I have been doing a few of the big carves.... I'm not tried and true, but its my best shot...

[lynnfrwd]

I read that (maybe incorrectly) as he wanted to do it in Centerline.

[cestout]

That may be, Connie, but to work like he wants, and look professional, I think Suzanne's design would work better. Add medium draft and bit optimization = best. Easier to paint also.
Clint

[aokweld101]

I used zan29 pattern and added a medium draft I thought he was asking to make his pattern 22" X 36". Maybe I didn't understand what he wanted.

[bergerud]

See what you think of these. I copied the original and it looks more like 22 X 33 not 22 x 36. The pieces are 11 X 33 with an extra 1/8" to spare on a 11.25 width board. You probably should use rails on each side to carve it. You can tweak bits and depths. (You should have told us what Designer you have. Important where text is concerned. This is 1.187.)

[Rob Mulgrew]

Thanks for all the great responses. I'm going through them now. I'm using 1.187 and I thought doing this as a centerline sign would save me atleast 16 hours of carving time. This is a double sided sign so there will be 4 halves.

[Rob Mulgrew]

In order not to cut threw the lettering I used 2 of the 12" boards and 1- 6" board and made the pattern 21.75 x 36.00 ... I have been doing a few of the big carves.... I'm not tried and true, but its my best shot...
Thanks for taking the time and putting together the .mpc's but I should of stated earlier and apologize for not that I am running Designer 1.187 and cannot open your mpc's.

[Rob Mulgrew]

See what you think of these. I copied the original and it looks more like 22 X 33 not 22 x 36. The pieces are 11 X 33 with an extra 1/8" to spare on a 11.25 width board. You probably should use rails on each side to carve it. You can tweak bits and depths. (You should have told us what Designer you have. Important where text is concerned. This is 1.187.)
They look really good and much nicer than I have been able to come up with. I'm just trying to figure out how to make the centerline text on the bottom to be larger without distorting it too much. It's under 2" in height and it probably wont be readable when driving by. I wish there was a way to trick the machine into using the 120 degree v bit. My friend runs the Shark CNC and uses that bit a lot and the letters are really wide and look nice. I would of paid him to run this one for me but his deck wont handle the 3ft length. A huge plus with the CW is the length it can run, if LHR produced a wider machine in the future it would be a huge hit. Well I know I would buy one.

[bergerud]

I just copied what you posted. Maybe you can change the font or layout. Try changing it to outline and make it bigger?

[Rob Mulgrew]

7736977370
Here is the latest design tweak being we couldn't get the text on the bottom line of the other design to be large enough. Trying to get it into vector format and in 2 halves (top & bottom .mpc) roughly 24x36 overall size or whatever it comes out to be. Thanks for your help on this one Dan

[bergerud]

This is much harder! The main text has to be cut in half. Hmm...

[Rob Mulgrew]

This is much harder! The main text has to be cut in half. Hmm...
Maybe just put it on in a smaller mpc and I'll scale it to 36" long and save the top half and then move the bottom of the pattern up to the board and save as the bottom?

[bergerud]

I am not sure how that works. Vectors off of the board are not like patterns off the board. I have seen some air cutting off of the board before. The joint is also going to be harder to hide.

How about three boards? You could even go bigger then.

[Rob Mulgrew]

I am not sure how that works. Vectors off of the board are not like patterns off the board. I have seen some air cutting off of the board before. The joint is also going to be harder to hide.

How about three boards? You could even go bigger then.
3 board would be fine but I cant go any larger than the 24" height (a permit was already approved for a sign not to exceed 24x36). It actually would be easier to do it like that instead of trying to line up centerline text.

[bergerud]

Ok, see what you think of this. 9" X 36" top and bottom with a 6" X 36" in the middle.

[Rob Mulgrew]

They look great. I'm going to go with that and start running them. I really appreciate your help on this. I'll post a picture of the final product when its done.

[bergerud]

I just assigned the 90V bit at 0.1" depth to everything. You might want to make some other choices.

[DickB]

The first time I ran a project with vectors off the project board the machine did a bunch of weird air carving to the side, like it compressed everything off the board down to an inch or so. This may or may not be a problem. It did burn some machine time. I stopped doing it on my projects.

If I were doing this project, I would make sure there was no centerline text off the board. I would convert the ovals etc. into segments that would not extend off the project board. I would also make no cuts within an inch of the edge of the actual board and temporarily add strips of scrap to the actual board, to keep the rollers in contact. As posted, Designer is going to complain when you upload the projects.

[bergerud]

All curves are trimmed and none go off of the boards. Some rails on the sides or (slightly wider boards to be trimmed later) is certainly a good idea.

[bergerud]

I would also make no cuts within an inch of the edge of the actual board and temporarily add strips of scrap to the actual board, to keep the rollers in contact.

Stay away from the board edge or use strips, I can understand. Why would you do both?

[Rob Mulgrew]

I think by using a larger board width & length than needed & centering the project on the board should solve both the roller & air carving issues? Then just use the table saw to cut the excess? One concern I have is that the bit depth must stay 100% consistent on the oval and border for 6 different runs. If it carves any of the border slightly deeper or shallower then the whole piece is scrap. I've never ran a multi sectional carve like this, is that a valid concern or you guys think the machine will be right on depth wise for all 6 pieces?

[bergerud]

I agree, larger board solves roller problems. (You will still get the warning on upload, but ignore.) About the depth, I think it should be ok. As long as the bit touch does not go into a soft spot on one of the boards. (Jog to touch near the edge where the next board will attach.)

[DickB]

Stay away from the board edge or use strips, I can understand. Why would you do both?I misspoke. I tend to think of the board + strips the same as a board.

[Rob Mulgrew]

774257742677427Not sure what went wrong but its off by 1/8. I didn't change any dimensions, only deleted the one oval and changed depths. What's your thoughts on this Dan?

[bergerud]

A bit of a tracking problem I guess. How deep was the ellipse? Single pass?

I always do shallow passes. It seems to me that the stress of deep passes causes slippage. The belts creep on the rollers or the board slips on the belts.

[Rob Mulgrew]

77428The oval is .25 in depth and the back of the boards have a clear track all the way down them. When I Piece it together it appears that the middle piece is a bit off?

[Rob Mulgrew]

I always do shallow passes. It seems to me that the stress of deep passes causes slippage. The belts creep on the rollers or the board slips on the belts.
Okay. When you said slippage I thought of the tracking roller but I guess it could of been the belts slipping underneath the board. Maybe that was is the issue. Try setting it to take 2 passes at .125 instead of one at .25?

[bergerud]

I do not think the mpcs were off. It was all snapped to a grid.

If you think the top board was too short, then there may have been slippage. If you think the middle board was too long, then there may have been tracking roller problems. This is a hard one since the boards are so long. Did you use rails on the sides of the boards? I would do the two passes.

Can you determine by measurement which board is off?

[Rob Mulgrew]

I think the issue is with the second board. I hit "center on board", the board was wider and longer than needed and when you measure from the end of the board to where the project starts its 4" and then go to the other end of the board and measure in to where the project starts its 3.75". It should of been centered. So that would make the middle board too long.

[bergerud]

That is the board with all the text on it. Did it do the test first or the arcs first? Text I bet.

[Rob Mulgrew]

That is the board with all the text on it. Did it do the test first or the arcs first? Text I bet. I believe it carved the 2 vectors on the left, then the text and then the arc and line on the other end but I don't 100% recall now. Would you say that's the issue being it didn't center it on the board?

[bergerud]

I have noticed that vibration screws up the board tracking roller. When this happens, the machine falls back on the x drive encoder. The result seems always to be a longer cut. Does that explain the off center? That is my theory.

Try this: delete the text and just carve the arcs. If they turn out right, put the board back in and carve the text.

[Rob Mulgrew]

Try this: delete the text and just carve the arcs. If they turn out right, put the board back in and carve the text.
Great idea. Going to try it right now even though I'm half asleep, it is 1am but it's gonna bother me till I get it right. Thanks!

[Rob Mulgrew]

That is the issue. I just carved the arcs without the text and they line up perfect with the top board. Now to try the text. Thanks for your help again. I really appreciate it.

[bergerud]

Great. Go to sleep. You can carve the text tomorrow!

[Rob Mulgrew]

Almost done. It was a bit more challenging than expected but overall its been a great learning experience. I ran into an issue again with the oval not lining up right so I just drew a new one over the top of the old one and reloaded the project and didn't have anymore carving issues from there.
I used a new wood filler and it didn't take stain as well as I hoped but they don't look bad being the holes are all in the same place or I guess can do a darker stain to better conceal them but I'd be scared to mess anything up at this point. The sign is double sided and the over all size came out to 25.5" by 37.5". I really appreciate everyone who helped me on this one.
One question though about finishing signs. It's going outdoors and I was going to use Helmsman spar urethane a few coats brushed on but in the past this clear coat had tendency to put a yellow tint on my nice bright white letters. Any recommendations?
77601

[bergerud]

It was a bit more challenging than expected ...

Isn't that always the case! It sure looks great.

[aokweld101]

You done a great job, I am still trying to learn this but I'm going to have my try tommorrow.

[Rob Mulgrew]

You done a great job, I am still trying to learn this but I'm going to have my try tommorrow.
Thanks. After nearly 3 years I finally did a multi section carve. While I wouldn't want to do these all the time, its good to know I am capable of doing it if necessary and I don't have to turn orders away that are larger than the CW width.
I wish you the best on your carve tomorrow. After going through 4 boards that wouldn't line up right I was ready to give up and checked with another sign shop with a large cnc and they wanted $350 to do the carving part and I'd still have to do the finishing. So thankfully I decided to try again and got it done saving $350.

[want2b]

.
One question though about finishing signs. It's going outdoors and I was going to use Helmsman spar urethane a few coats brushed on but in the past this clear coat had tendency to put a yellow tint on my nice bright white letters. Any recommendations?
77601[/QUOTE]

Don't have an answer, hopefully somebody else will have something better than Helmsman. Used a sprayble exterior poly from Kwik Kleen that didn't add to much tint but they have gone out of business. Maybe just my application but have not have any luck with Helmsman in the durability area. Looks great when applied but within a year it starts to look crappy. Areas turn blackish , mainly any lighter areas of the wood. Have tried it on cedar and on sycamore.
Rick H

[aokweld101]

your gloss is getting old. you need to get another can.