What's the best wood to use for sign making?

[lpj1019]

Hey Guys.....I have yet another question.....lol.....I have been cutting most of my signs with pine and poplar 1x.....I have met someone that has offered to paint my signs and were planning to attend some craft shows to see if we can sell more of our work.

My friend ask me about using MDF board, and I wasn't for sure? I assumed that MDF would have alot of chip out, but never really tried to use the material, just assumed. Has anyone used MDF?

If not MDF, what wood would produce the best signs.....pine, poplar, oak?.....that will have less chip out, need the less amount of sanding and prep work and holds paint well.....thanks for any information that you can share.

Paul

[hogiewan]

MDF makes a lot of fine dust that is bad for your health. The harder the wood, the better and cleaner the carves will be (generally), but harder wood is more work for the machine and more expensive. Maple is a hard wood that can usually be found at decent prices.

[jab73180]

if you want to use hardwood maple is great. pine works great for softwood. some people only use pine.

[jaroot]

I think it kind a depends on the sign. A simple letter carved sign for a cabin might be best on a piece of cedar or redwood. A sign for a display in a jewelry store might require red oak. I've made a couple of signs out of glued up pine that came out nicely. MDF seems to carve real nice but as it has been noted it does produce a lot of dust. Not too big of a deal if you have a dust collection system. There have been a couple of signs posted here that were carved from corian. I think that my favorite wood to carve is redwood. I have recently got some samples of HDU that I'm hoping to do some test carving on as soon as my machine is back up. I've heard that it works really good for signs but I'm guessing that it will product a lot of clingy dust.

First pic is of a Mt. Goat carved in MDF detail is very good. First sign is glued up pine second is construction grade solid pine.

[Rick P]

The attached sign was made from exterior MDF...EXTIRA...holds detail great...it's heavy...you need good dust collection on your CW because of the fine dust.

Redwood is great for outdoor signs too.

Signs/plaques for inside can be almost any wood you like...experiment !!!