Custom Cottage Sign
Custom cottage signs are always fun to make, in this case, we have a piece of 3/4 inch (18 mm) pine that has “gone fishing” on one side and “gone hunting” on the other.
This board that we used to make this custom cottage sign with came from an off-cut and had a knot in it. I like knots but if you don’t, let us know and we’ll get a board without any.
The board is covered with a masking to reduce the amount of sanding required thought this is relative as the paint going on it will also require extensive sanding so in this case, it just bring the amount of work down after everything dries only slightly.
Unlike a CNC router, when a laser hits higher density material, it doesn’t power through it, it creates an elevation as there is no two-way feedback like with a router. As a result, when grain is hit, due to its higher density, an elevation is created.
The design can be anything for your custom cottage sign, any material, any size and any shape.
This little bit of extra detail on a custom cottage sign really makes the board all the more attractive to me, it’s extra details that follow that grain but if you didn’t want this on your sign, we’d have a few ways to lessen it or just use the our CNC router to remove it completely. I think custom signage should look great both at a distance and close-up.
In this case, due to the very fine text and images, a CNC router version of this sign wouldn’t work all that well as the bit would have to be extremely fine, which is more prone to breaking. For this specific design and material, the laser is tough to beat!
The pine is a pretty soft wood material wise so the laser gets pretty good depth out of the initial laser pass of about 1/5th inch (5 mm) which gives plenty of room for sanding the surface and paint filling afterwards followed by additional sanding.
There is no two-way feedback with a laser regarding material, so it’s more of a play by eye process, these are small details and no big deal when it comes to fabricating a custom cottage sign.
If additional depth is wanted, just doing more laser passes on this custom sign or going slower with more power would be all that’s required though the structure of some very thin inner pieces starts to lose strength which isn’t a big deal if there is no sanding (or very light) or paint filling.
The reason for making this custom cottage sign with a gone hunting on one side and gone fishing on the other is so that one sign can be made for two distinctive messages. The back of the board is still great real estate, no point throwing it out and making two custom signs if you can optimally use both sides of it!
The font on this custom cottage sign was very specific to showcase the clarity and quality of work we can achieve using our Austrian CNC laser to engrave and cut materials, in this case pine. I see lots of these kinds of signs that are carved-out and yes, we can do that too, but not so many that are very highly detailed which is only possible using a high quality laser!
Of course, as CNCROi.com does everything on demand to our customer’s specs, if you wanted this custom cottage sign to just have the laser engraving without any paint filling or a solid surface color with the engraving revealing the wood underneath, we can totally do that for you!
Now that one side of the custom cottage sign is done, we’ll do the other, this time with the “gone fishing” laser engraved into the custom pine sign.
As this sign is double-sided, cutting the animals or fish straight through wasn’t an option but yes, we can do that if you wanted a single side or were creative about what to do with the other side. Another possibility for this custom sign would be to vaporize material and put an inlay of contrasting material for the vertebrate.
Looking at the custom cottage sign from a different angle, you can see the material being vaporized right off the surface and the thickness of the overall sign to the dimensions shown.
Gone Fishing is almost done, the paint filling process was done as efficiently as possible by making everything one color but if you wanted to, it could have had lots of different color options to suit just about any need.
The nice thing about this natural wood pine custom cottage sign is that after many years of wear and tear, it can be used as firewood on a camping trip and we can make you another one identical to it without any problem out of either the same material or something different like Oak, Maple or anything else.
Now that “gone fishing” custom cottage sign is done, we’ll put some blue exterior paint on the surface!
And also flip it around and put some green paint on the other side! The masking is kept on to reduce the amount of sanding that would be required but there is still going to be some pine dust created to make sure everything is nice and sharp on this custom sign.
After the masking is removed, you can see a bit of the paint got through but overall, it’s looking very good!
Same with the other side, a bit of paint got through but again, a tremendous amount of sanding time has been saved and it’s more touch-ups than full board cleaning being required.
The finished custom cottage sign has very clear engraving and the paint came out great!
Everything is nice and crisp, even on the very fine aspects of the lettering. You can also see how leaving the grain as part of the design inside of the letters really pops with the paint filling.
This board was a left over that I also used to make the custom award sample of a F16 which you can read about HERE, just shows you the diversity that’s possible at CNCROi.com and we haven’t even gotten into a host of other material options!
Looking for a custom CNC shop to make everything from unique corporate awards to exterior signage? Contact CNCROi.com right now!
