Sign Foam Board

[Gary]

I found sign foam board just down the road. Its density is about equivalent to redwood. 3/4 inch thickness is $7.00 a square foot after tax. Weather impervious and accepts any kind of paint, according to the seller. It's sold in 4x8 sheets by Advanced Plastics, Inc. I'm building a sled to run it on because at the price of it, I'm not going to cut 3 and a half inches off of the ends of each project just to keep it under the rollers.

Anybody else have any experience with this board? I'll give a report back after I've carved it, if anybody wants.

Gary

[bobreda]

Gary,

Its used a lot for commerical sinage by cnc operators. It is really expensive and goes up to 4" thick I believe. Whats nice about it is you don't have to worry about grain orientation. Its used a lot for commerical applications and usually signs made out of this, especially in 3d start at about $150 per sq ft.

Bob

[HandTurnedMaple]

I have an 8' x 8' sample of it (SignArt brand) that I intend to cut in the next few days (if I can resolve the card reader issue). I will post the results as soon as I do if you want to wait a few days before buying.

[HandTurnedMaple]

OK here's my report on sign foam. I like it. I carves cleanly since there is no grain to fight. I supports 3/32" wide relief carvings without cracking or breaking.

The only real negative I found was the dust. There was not a lot of it, but it was super-fine and coated everything inside the machine since it was so light. Additionally its very irritating on the skin. Not "turn your skin red and rush to the emergency room" irritating, but "can't wait to get back inside so I wash this stuff off my hands" irritating. The nice there is the fact that the material [that I used] is 100% waterproof, so I just washed the dust off the project in the sink.

It also sands very quickly and fairly smoothly. You will never get a glassy smooth surface with this material though, since sanding it will just cause additional layers of cells to open. It is designed to be primered and then painted. There should be specific guides available on how to finish your specific product.

It is also fairly tough. I dropped my carving on the floor at one point, and it didn't even dent the corner. All in all, I found it to be an excellent material for making painted signs.

[Sarge]

I have an 8' x 8' sample of it (SignArt brand) that I intend to cut in the next few days (if I can resolve the card reader issue). I will post the results as soon as I do if you want to wait a few days before buying.

HTM, I got them to send me three 8 x 8 x 3/4 blocks of the same. I'm just "chicken" to start carving on it yet. If you get a "wild hair" to give it a try, please let me know the results.

[MAX COX]

Sarge, i received the samples of sign foam about a year ago. it carves great.
do not be afraid to carve it. you will be amazed how good it carves.

[Gary]

I spent a half hour composing a reply to this post, and it went poof and disappeared. I hate f**king windows and always have. Anyway thanks for your help, I'll be carving the sign foam soon. I'll send pics when I can.

Gary

[Jeff_Birt]

Has nothing to do with Windows. The forum is web based. If something happens to your connection (like you ISP drops you for a second) when you try to post your reply it has no where to go. ANY OS or browser will behave the same way.

[Gary]

It could be what you say, thanks for the help. Regardless, things don't work as they should. I used to build win 3.1 and 95 computers when it was still new, got out of it. Ran a digital sound studio for a few years with win 95, got a lot of good sound with it. Now, I'm pretty much lost, don't have a clue about Corel Draw or any other editing programs, trying to find out. ya'll just keep on talkin' , I'll figure things out.

Thanks to all,

Gary