Simon’s Custom Door Sign: Black on White Lamacoid

Simon’s about to pop out so preparations are being made for his room, that includes a custom door sign that he won’t be able to read for a few more years from now – hence the panda bear to help him out until he can.

For this custom door sign, the specs were pretty simple, I needed something that was HIGH CONTRAST, something that wouldn’t hurt him if it fell off the door (it will be tightly screwed) and something that he can bring with him to the nursing home when his abilities to find his room become more challenging, long after I’ve turned to dust.

No door is complete without a door holder, it’s amazing how many custom products can be made for a simple item as a door, imagine what we can do for your Yacht!

Plastic suit all these needs, unlike printed (UV, screen etc.), this will not fade, crack or peel overtime as it’s one solid piece of plastic, except for the 1/8″ 3 mm MDF backing to give it a bit more rigidity.

As my kid will be half Asian, I thought the panda bear would be perfect, and it just happens to be a high contrast animal that suited my black and white lamacoid requirements, second was a zebra but nobody likes those.

This isn’t the first door sign we’ve made, generally they are made to go above a door and out of wood.

With lamacoids, the general rule is that you try to remove as little material as possible from the surface, it tends to gunk-up the lens pretty quickly due to various reasons, as such, the SMART thing to do in this case would be to use white surface on black core lamacoid but I had none in my scrap bin at CNCROi.com.

So I had to tough it out using the wrong colors to make Simon’s custom door sign, and you’ll see directly why this isn’t the best production method for lamacoids.

This is probably my most favorite demonstration plaque I’ve made at CNCROi.com, I just love the quote and the color combination, it’s actually behind me in just about every video I’ve made since.

It might be hard to see in the above picture but below you can see what’s happening, as our CNC laser lens gets gunked-up, the focus and strength of the laser beam itself gets refracted through the gunk, which causes less power to hit the surface of the black on white lamacoid.

So when it gets “bad enough”, I have to stop the laser and clean the lens, then repeat, of course, now I’m starting with a “fresh” full power lens, as such, what was becoming progressively worse instantly gets better, hence the gradient going from white to black then pure white again on this CNCROi.com custom door sign.

Something Simon isn’t aware of yet are mosquitoes, I don’t make signs for them because they are as illiterate as he is at the moment, though for mosquitoes, it’s an excuse to keep bothering us in the summers.

If I had used a lamacoid that was white on black, this wouldn’t be an issue as so little, relatively writing, material would have been removed, so no problems but again, only the best for Simon, it’s whatever I got left in the CNCROi.com scrap bin for him!

Luckily, CNCROi.com has an AWESOME CNC laser, we got the Rolex of the laser engraving world, so the simplest solution is to just do another pass over the entire sign to engrave off all the gradients right off Simon’s custom door sign.

I’ve also made tons of custom name badges, both fun and interesting to boring, using lamacoids of various color combinations.

As I’ll repeat a million times, there is no perfect machine anymore than there is a perfect material, there is just the best given the circumstances, and in this case, our CNC laser clearly wins and other than the non-efficient production method used for this custom door sign, lamacoids were clearly ahead of anything else.

The bright line you see in this video and photograph is the instant vaporization of the lamacoid’s surface, that produces a little smoke that gets sucked right out of the machine but for lamacoids, it also produces a little dust that sticks to everything, especially laser lenses.

Another great use for lamacoids is donor signs, CNCROi.com has made tons of them for various organizations and individuals.

The nice thing about lamacoids is that they are available in endless color variations, if you want something that looks like metal without the cost, lamacoids, if you want wood with a high contrast white engraving, lamacoids, if you want a high contrast sign for your kid named Simon, lamacoids again!

When it comes to custom door signs, any font works, any design is fine and sizing is totally up to you, as is materials, CNCROi.com isn’t set with any given process or material, we make what you want made, that’ simple.

Now that Simon’s custom door sign is finished the first pass, it’s time to go over the entire surface again, with 5 nm of accuracy, to remove the gradient that’s produced by a gunky lens at CNCROi.com.

I’ll probably have to make myself a custom door sign so that when Simon’s sleeping, nobody will bother him, especially delivery people at the front door of home.

It’s like magic, what was once looking rough, instantly becomes consistent and pretty, I’m sure Simon will appreciate this beauty later in life.

When it comes to lamacoids, sometimes a secondary pass is a quicker cleaning method than other processes, takes a bit of time but it really works wonders when required.

One of the more unique applications that CNCROi.com uses lamacoids for are wall caps.

Just to remind you, if I would have used the correct colors for this black on white lamacoid, using white on black lamacoid, this secondary clean-up process wouldn’t be required at all, the result would have been perfect right away.

I think Simon’s custom door sign really came out great, given the use of imperfect material, it just shows you how much “give” we have with our equipment because we use great material and have fantastic machinery… if anything was “off”, this secondary pass would have produced garbage as there would have been an offset.

And Simon’s finished custom door sign is done, it’s so nice, I want one too… as well as my own custom metal towel holder.

The problem with making custom things all day for clients across North America, Europe and the Caribbean is that there is always MORE to be made, it’s a wonderful never-ending cycle of fun!