Shop update #61 (12-26-18)

I’ve been working on some family signs for the last couple of weekends to give out as Christmas presents and got them finished and wrapped up by Monday morning. 

I cut them out during the week and gave them a coat of spray polyurethane on Saturday morning.  I let that dry for a couple of hours and then gave them a coat of black spray paint to fill in the letters.

I sanded them down on Sunday but the poly that I used the previous day must have been going bad because the black paint really soaked into the wood.  On the advice of some people in a maker Facebook group that I belong to I broke out the router table and gave them all a decorative edge.  I’m glad that I took this extra step as it really gave them a good look.

I gave them a coat of stain and that helped to hide some of the leftover paint.

Once the stain had dried for a couple of hours I gave them a coat of satin polyurethane and let them dry overnight.

Monday morning I wrapped them up and gave them out as presents that night.  They were a great hit.

I also got a last minute request to make a custom engraved cutting board to give out as a Christmas present.  I didn’t have time to make a new board so I picked up a bamboo board from a local big box store and engraved it using my X-Carve CNC machine.  We wanted to make it subtle, so I cut it very, very shallow.

I hand sanded it down to 220 grit and actually made it smoother than it originally came from the store.  A marketing company sent me some food safe Walnut oil finish a few months ago and I finally got the chance to try it out.  It gave the board a very nice finish and I am very happy with it.

I am heading out to a car show this weekend and some friends of mine are holding a raffle to help out a fellow car club member that lost his truck to one of the big fires in Northern California.  I made a quick MiniTruckin plaque and I am also going to frame the piece that I was working on a couple of weeks ago.