Custom Gratitude Sign: Furniture Grade Plywood

Custom gratitude sign made out of furniture grade plywood was made for a corporate office to hold-up a information board by CNCROi.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KisYwjoUh2w/

For this specific sign, we made it using 3/4″ 19 mm thick plywood because we needed a custom gratitude sign that was strong enough for an office environment where it could get bumped or kicked by accident.

The overall custom gratitude sign is 50 inches across, it was split in to by CNCROi.com to make shipping easier and as you can see from the pictures, once put back together using two hinges in the back, still performs great as a solid sign.

The other advantage of having a sign of this size other than cheaper shipping costs are storage and mobility, again, for an office environment, the smaller things are, the easier it is to carry around to the area it’s needed without requiring help.

When it comes to durability, office signage can be made out of solid steel, powder coated or enamel painted, it will look great in any setting and can be customized to anything you want.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsXTxcW_juQ/

Our CNC router cut out all the letters for this custom gratitude sign, originally it was going to be “see through” but after it was made, the client decided having a backing would improve the design, which it did, but if CNCROi.com were to redo this sign, I would have pocketed the backing into the sign itself to avoid having any protrusions in the back.

That’s the advantage to custom design through fabrication, any and all aspects of a project can be customized and improved upon down the line, this sign looks fantastic but adding handles and other items would have made it better, at least this is possible with CNCROi.com.

If you want a custom door sign, we can make that out of any material you want with any message you wish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezi8hSTxHp8/

The bit we used CNC routering this custom gratitude sign was 3/8″ thick, it’s a beefy bit that made production of this signage both accurate and cost effective to produce, no hold-down was required because CNCROi.com also has a vacuum table to suck the plywood to the sacrificial board underneath.

You’ll notice that the sign below holds-up vertically no problem without glue, that’s due to the interlocking design, the purpose of the hinges is just to hold it together and make set-up easier, they aren’t absolutely necessary.

A glueless design has many advantages, the first is in an office environment, people don’t necessarily want to add carpentry to their job list, that’s also why hinges were added, again, one less thing to worry or be concerned about.

We can also make full wall signage using our equipment, out of wood, metal or any material you can imagine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuKl4ii1IQ8/

The other advantage of a glueless design is ease of use, CNCROi.com could have made this entire sign SOLID with screws and glue, but shipping would have been a lot more expensive and carrying this around, in the office or to trade shows, would have been a lot more hassle at this large size.

After sanding out the wood burrs around the letters, the next step is staining the furniture grade plywood, it has very few voids in the center of the plys and is incredibly strong as a result.

Staining was performed on both sides of course, again, not necessary, but for the overall esthetic, a few extra minutes used here and there are worth it to produce a more finished custom gratitude sign.

CNCROi.com is able to transform just about any material into signage, want something that’s heavy and the ultimate in durability? Solid surface material is a wonderful choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb-rQCDsIwM/

The nice aspect of stain is that the wood grain isn’t hidden behind a layer of paint, it gives wooden items a lot more esthetics for this specific application, and using Maple plywood stained to look like Cherry also saves a lot of money in materials.

Now for the hinges in the back, these hinges aren’t supporting very much, this custom gratitude sign can easily hold itself up without them, but for the environment this will be in, I decided it would make things easier to set-up and take down.

The screws go into the plywood about a third of the way, still plenty strong given it’s non-supportive function, it holds the front tight together to the point where you don’t even notice this custom gratitude sign is made-up of two pieces.

CNCROi.com can also make custom lamacoid signage, think bathroom signs, department signs or even small signs to keep the office tidy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAx_3VUIB9w/

Now for the backing, as this sign was already cut out and stained when a design request was made, the easiest “fix” to fulfill it was to paint 1/4″ MDF black and then screw it into the back of the sign, for precision and speed, we used our CNC laser to perform this task.

These black backings needed to fit between the hinges and the stand-offs that hold it upright, we could have cut them out with our table saw as well, but the laser is a less messy process.

When it comes to live edge signage species, we have an inventory of woods to choose from for jobs, so if you wanted your sign out of Butternut, Maple, Pine, Cedar etc… no problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyDXD6pTj3s/

CNCROi.com has a variety of capital equipment, as a result, there are always many options to produce an item, it just comes down to making the best given what we have.

You’ll notice the placement of the screws is the same for both boards, that’s because I cut out the holes using the laser as well, so placement was a breeze on this custom gratitude sign.

After that, everything was done, there is no glue involved with any aspect of this custom gratitude sign, so set-up is very straight forward, no waiting for things to dry.

If you wanted a solid wood sign, CNCROi.com can produce that as well, here’s what I have in the front of my home.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr_QpXOyCHc/

I think the customer’s request for a black backing really makes this sign look amazing, it was a fantastic idea, I wished I would have thought of it myself, the hinges hold the two sides tight together so the seam between them is almost unnoticeable.

The stand-ups on the side also hold this sign perfectly, the overall signage is very sturdy.

Looking at the back, you can see the placement of the backing, if the customer ever wants to change the color, it’s no problem, just unscrew, spray paint and screw back onto the back of the custom gratitude sign.

Want a custom sign? Contact CNCROi.com right now!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74jQmvuThqk/