Custom Metal Cottage Sign: Plasma Cut 12 ga Hot Rolled Mild Steel

Let’s make a custom metal cottage sign at CNCROi.com using our CNC plasma cutter from 12 ga hot rolled mild steel!

I really enjoy making metal signage, it’s incredibly durable for outdoor applications and just about any design looks great, backlit or otherwise, with endless paint color options.

For this custom metal cottage sign, it’s a fish with some choice words along the top, this is actually a present for my uncle who owns a cottage.

When you vaporize metal, that dust and smoke must go somewhere, I have a very good extraction system so it goes outside, but even then, the shop does get a little smoky during the cutting process at CNCROi.com.

Of all the tools I have in the shop, I’d say plasma cutting is the most enjoyable to work with, just because it’s loud, smoky and full of sparks.

As I delve deeper and deeper into welding for personal projects and those of customers, I’ve really grown to appreciate the clean edges I get from plasma cutting where very little clean-up is required, almost like laser, in order to bond the metal together at CNCROi.com.

If you have something very thin, laser is a better tool as the plasma cuts parts with a lot more heat affected zones.

Regardless of the CNC machine I’m using at CNCROi.com, the process of cutting out inner parts before the design’s outline is always the same in order to produce the most accurate parts possible in my shop.

If you look under the metal sheet I’m cutting, you’ll notice a heck of a lot of fire down there, you can feel the heat from the cutting process and feel the power of plasma cutting, unlike laser, which almost seems cold by comparison though it’s more accurate when it comes to small part as there isn’t as much explosive heat generated.

My concern for this design were the gills actually on the custom metal cottage sign, I wasn’t sure if they’d come out as great as they did at CNCROi.com as they were quite small but as always, I’m never left wanting and it did a fabulous job cutting out this sign.

Waterjet cutting has its place, like the plasma or the laser.

The reason why you see the sparks on the top of the mild steel sheet is because plasma cutting is a melting process, and as such, until the “melt” goes all the way through the sheet, all that vaporized and molten metal has nowhere to go but up and as the head of the plasma is moving at the same time, it’s pushed through the material so as a result, it always follows the previous path direction of the plasma cutting.

Like welding, these sparks are almost extinguished as soon as they are generated, so this isn’t much of a fire hazard, like welding though, a spark is a spark, and you don’t want to be doing this in the middle of a saw dust factory, which is essentially the front of CNCROi.com, which is why the metal division of my company is on the opposite end of the wood division.

Plasma cutting is used for a number of projects at CNCROi.com, sometimes it’s minimal like the feet of the hand rail and other times, almost the entire project needs to be plasma cut and welded together.

It’s incredible how strong steel is, even at this 12 ga thickness, which is roughly 1/8″ thick, it would be a challenge to bend it by hand, if this was wood, just about any wood, it would crack under the pressure but not metal, which is why it’s fantastic for outdoor use, because changes in temperature and humidity have little affect on it.

For this custom metal cottage sign, I added some text along the top, but I want you to notice how I anchored it into the top of the sign, basically, this custom metal cottage sign must be treated like a stencil, with all parts supported, and integrating the bottom of the text into the oval silhouette of the sign was the best way to have everything as one solid piece.

Plasma cutting does a wonderful job of cutting metal, the results look great and the paint always transforms the signs into any look you want.

There are also some small parts that I thickened up on purpose, such the as the fishing reel, just to give the overall custom metal cottage sign just a little more strength and resilience from CNCROi.com.

Having large voids isn’t something I ever like to have in a sign, so having things a little thicker maks a big difference for overall aesthetics but also durability of the custom metal cottage sign.

If you look very close at the metal that was cut, you’ll notice a little dross along the edges, that comes right off with an orbital sander, there is a bit more along the bottom due to gravity pulling the molten metal down, but that again, comes right off as it isn’t bonded to the custom metal cottage sign generally, just deposited there.

Here’s another sign I made using the same thickness as this cottage sign, both painted black along with tight part cutting.

By far the smokiest process when plasma cutting are outlines, that’s when there is continuous cutting of the metal and as such, the more vaporization generated the more smoke created at CNCROi.com.

Once the custom metal cottage sign is cut out, you can gain a better understanding of just how tight this design was and yes, that fishing rod does look a little too thick, I’d probably skinny that out a bit if I were to do it again and also add a point along the top of the sign for it to touch, and greatly increase the strength of in the void, but that’s a lesson best remembered for next time.

Having multiple platforms allows us to create rather unique products for our customers, in short order and at top quality!

After removing all the dust and debris on the custom metal cottage sign, it’s time to throw a fresh coat of enamel paint onto it, on both the front and back, to protect it from rusting.

I’ve found several light coats of paint are better than a big solid coat, so generally I do a light spray, wait an hour, then apply another one in places I seem to have missed, and then repeat the process a few more times on both sides until everything is evenly coated.

This cottage sign was made with the same thickness as the custom metal business sign below, that the customer backlit.

Here’s what the finished custom metal cottage sign looks like after the paint dried, it’s came out wonderfully!

Just the right amount of gloss on this design, my uncle loved the custom metal cottage sign and I’ll be seeing it again every year that I visit his cottage up North.

If you are wondering what the “scrap” from a sign looks like, here’s a photo below, there isn’t much and metal is endlessly recyclable, so this is actually a revenue generator once I have enough to warrant a visit to the metal recycling yard.

Need a custom metal cottage sign? Contact CNCROi.com right now!