Sasquatch / Big Foot Sign
It only took a few years but CNCROi.com has now made a Sasquatch / Big Foot sign!
The material of choice for this Sasquatch / Big Foot sign was 304 stainless steel and it was PERMANENTLY etched using our CNC fiber laser source.
I love CNC plasma cutting and in this case, it was a big circle, nothing fancy, but the real work was in the fiber laser etching of it after cleaning it up.
CNC fiber laser etching is a very slow process, and in this case, I did it in several passes to create the effect I was after… it took so long to do that I was in the shop till 5 am watching this until it completed!
The Sasquatch / Big Foot sign was a design provided by the customer, it’s a fantastic picture and like my samurai I did earlier, absolutely amazing once finished in the shop.
I’m lucky I have such great artistic customers because no way I could ever draw something this great and have the opportunity to brand it on stainless steel for the eons!
The bright light you see in the pictures and video is caused by the fiber laser hitting the surface of the steel and etching into it, that’s why, if you notice, there is a growing mound of stainless steel dust that follows just ahead of the etching all the way down the 304 stainless steel plate of this Sasquatch / Big Foot sign.
There is no point in having awesome machines if you can’t have fun with them, and share that joy with others around you.
The reason this fiber etching takes so long is due to the fact that the resolution is so high and the laser has to move so slow in order to produce the right etching effect, too fast and the result are “light” and too slow, I have time to retire and die by the time this job is done.
I really love how CNCROi.com has evolved, being able to use the synergy of multiple CNC platforms to quickly and efficiently produce truly amazing one-of-a-kind work and ship it to our customers within days of initial contact.
You can begin to see how the Sasquatch / Big Foot sign is taking shape, the lighting is awful, not helped by the reflectivity of the room with the reflectivity of the stainless steel but if you look closely, the head of the Big Foot can be see with the mountain-scape behind him.
CNCROi.com has a variety of production methods to produce the desired results you are after.
You can now begin to see the small pile of fiber etching dust being slowly pushed forward ahead of the fiber laser etching of the Sasquatch / Big Foot sign, the reason it moves is due to air pressure shooting on the plate to keep it cool.
Fiber laser etching at CNCROi.com creates a lot of heat and with stainless steel, it keeps that heat and may warp – so lots of air circulation and powerful jets of air help keep everything relatively cool to the touch.
The thickness of the CNC plasma cut and fiber etched Sasquatch / Big Foot stainless steel sign is 2.8 mm, 12 ga or a little less than 1/8″.
How durable is the work performed at CNCROi.com? Check this sand blasting test out!
Being able to plasma cut this at CNCROi.com and then a few ft away, throw this steel disk in the laser machine is great fun, it means literally any shape, size or design style can be adapted quickly and efficiently for our customers, there really are no limitations other than time and budgets.
The growing mound of fiber etched stainless steel dust is about an inch away from the source, so there is no fear of contamination or having it interfere with the fiber laser etching process itself at CNCROi.com.
When it comes to fiber laser etching, any design works, but for the best contrast, black and white imagery is by far the best, otherwise, we have to use a newsprint method using dots of various diameters to produce the result.
Etching vs annealing… etching wins at CNCROi.com… here’s why in this video.
You can see the Sasquatch / Big Foot sign coming into being now, just doing the bottom part many, many, MANY hours after starting this job.
I’ve fiber etched A LOT of stainless steel, we can do this process on thinner gauges (thicknesses) but I find that durability, strength and overall esthetic is best using 12 gauge on up.
Keep in mind that metal is heavy, so that’s generally our limitation because if you want to hang this on a wall, you don’t want somebody to get injured because it went through the floor into a lower level of your house.
Stainless steel is wonderful for a variety of purposes, it’s notable “strength” is just that, even if it’s relatively thin, it still has more strength than most woods with a fraction of the required thickness by comparison.
The result looks amazing, the next step is to thoroughly clean this fiber etched Sasquatch / Big Foot sign, this will help unify the contrast a lot more.
The finished result looks amazing, it all depends on what angle you use to view this Sasquatch / Big Foot sign as it changes based on the reflections hitting it and angles to light, a very cool esthetic that isn’t possible with any other material than metal.
From another angle, you can see the Sasquatch / Big Foot sign… I just love this stainless steel signage!
Want some custom signage? Contact CNCROi.com!