Shop update #67 (2-6-19) – How to make a GAMBLING HALL sign
I finished the secret project that I was hinting at last week and gave it to my friend at his Super Bowl Party. Here are all the steps that I went through to make it.
Step 1: I designed the whole thing using the free Easel software on the Inventables website.
Step 2: I carved the plaque using my X-Carve CNC machine. The whole thing took about 2 hours to cut and I did it in 3 stages.
Step 3: I gave the whole thing a heavy coat of spray polyurethane. This will help to keep the spray paint from bleeding into the wood too badly.
Step 4: I broke out the router table and gave the plaque a decorative edge using the top half of a Roman OGee router bit.
Step 5: I used some sandpaper wrapped around a pencil to smooth the wood in the profile and my random orbit sander to sand the sides.
Step 6: I gave the top and sides a solid coat of black spray paint.
Step 7: I let that dry in the direct sunlight for a couple of hours and then masked off the parts that I wanted to stay black.
Step 8: The next step was to give the exposed parts a coat of red spray paint.
Step 9: I let that dry for about 30 minutes and then peeled off the masking tape to let the whole thing dry overnight.
Step 10: Later that night I handed painted the stripe in the middle with metallic silver acrylic craft paint. I also touched up some of the red paint that didn’t cover very well.
Step 11: I let the paint dry for the week and then sanded off the top coat of paint with my random orbit sander with a fresh disc of 120 grit sandpaper.
Step 13: I like to carve my logo and the year into my pieces whenever possible
Step 14: I blew off all the sawdust, wiped it down, and gave it a coat of Golden Oak Stain
Step 14: I hand painted the CROWDER with Metallic Silver and the Gambling Hall with Metallic Gold. With the stain color that I used, I had to give them both 2 coats, and the Gold is very hard to notice.
Step 15: It was raining and cold by this time so I had to give it 3 coats of spray polyurethane inside my shop. I gave it a light sanding between coats and used a small space heater to help dry it between coats.
It was a lot of fun to make and everybody at the party really seemed to like it, especially my buddy and his wife.
