Lettering Advice Needed

[Carry Pine]

Some people at work have shown an interest in having signs around the school - like routed out of wood. You know the type: 'garden bed', 'native garden' etc.

Does anyone have advice for someone who's not done this before. Obviously there will be the purchase of some type of jig (and i can look at the WWW show Sydney but,
I have: Router, Triton bushes set and various cutters. What else do I need that won't break the bank?

Cheers

Carry Pine

[watson]

Maybe a Pantograph and some letter stencils.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

I have: Router, Triton bushes set and various cutters. What else do I need that won't break the bank?

An alpha-numeric set of templates is all you'll need. If you have a bit of artistic skill, some ingenuity and a lot of patience, you can make your own.

It also helps if you make a frame that you can assemble the templates into and clamp the whole thing down as a unit, rather than one letter at a time. This isn't always possible though, as often the spacing of the letters and the extra space taken up by the bush means that the templates would need to overlap.

Edit: beaten by Watson!

[watson]

No, I'd defer Skew.
The Layout of the letters as you described is what's important.

[Chipman]

Some people do their lettering freehand...

I am not that good and did not have access to a set of stencils so this is what I did....

Create the lettering for the sign on the computer (large sized simple font) if need be, enlarge it to the required size with the photocopier.

Next, glue it to the piece of wood and then rout it out. When finished, sand off the paper.

Note that it is a lot easier in a wood with even grain... much harder to do in pine.

Chipman

[djfoggin]

Carry,
there a forum video of stuart using such a jig, maybe try his website www.stushed.com (http://www.stushed.com):2tsup:

[joe greiner]

To enhance the technique that Chipman describes, attach fences on each side of the lettering "window" so that the letters have even tops and bottoms.

For letter patterns that would require overlapping templates, make a reverse-reading template of the entire text using a veining bit (about 1/8" diameter). Attach the template to the back of the workpiece. On the router table, attach a bridge spanning the workpiece, with a pin hanging down into the groove. Google ["pin routing"] for more info. The reverse-reading pattern can be made in MSPaint using the "Flip Image" command. Make some practise runs on scrap to familiarise yourself.

Joe

[Stuart]

Watch my video on the subject ;)

[munruben]

Some people do their lettering freehand...

I am not that good and did not have access to a set of stencils so this is what I did....

Create the lettering for the sign on the computer (large sized simple font) if need be, enlarge it to the required size with the photocopier.

Next, glue it to the piece of wood and then rout it out. When finished, sand off the paper.

Note that it is a lot easier in a wood with even grain... much harder to do in pine.

ChipmanThere was as thread on the forum showing this method last year sometime but haven't been able to find it. It was probably over a year ago.

[Carry Pine]

Watch my video on the subject ;)


Yes, Stu - the video said it all. Thank you for that.
Strange that after years of ww I have never seen it done.

Carry Pine

[Balacv02]

I have a video clip of a TV serial "New Yankee Workshop" where the subject has been dealt at great length. If there is some place where I can upload it I will do so. Do let me know

[chrisb691]

I have a video clip of a TV serial "New Yankee Workshop" where the subject has been dealt at great length. If there is some place where I can upload it I will do so. Do let me know

Upload it to the site that Jisk setup for the forum videos, and let jisk know where you put it. Here (http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=64316)

[Balacv02]

Hi
Sorry. I was a little busy the last few days. I have just asked Jisk as to how to post the video. I went to the WWF video site. could not see any link for uploading. Thanks
regards
Bala