Sign Making 101- Tips for Wood Signs: Material, Finish, and Bit Selection

go ahead and zoom out so I can see it narrow it down, narrow it down, center it up, um, you probably know what I actually agree with this. size, so this is just the image file. You do not know. I'm going to delete it. I do not need it. I just need the vector and let's zoom in. Well, the mountains are calling and I must go. I'm happy with that, so then I might add, you know, other features here. I could add, you know, borders, but this is just simple, uh, for a tutorial, so the mounds are calling.

I have to go. I'm going to click on the text and I'm going to make a vcarve tool path, so then I click on the tool path and click vcarve. I have been using the 60 degree bit. You could certainly make a 90 degree drill bit. You would simply select what you want. I'm doing the initial depth. I'm just going to leave it as it is at zero, not messing with anything else here, this is just that, it's all I have to do, then I click on calculate and it'll just run it, it jumps into three 3D carving modes so you can To see what it looks like, it looks fabulous, so I'm going to go ahead and close it.

Not that it's necessary, but I'm going to rename this as text. Okay, let's go back to 2D mode and now I'm going to click. in my photo, so with my photo I still want to do a V carve, but I want to show you some other options in the tools step. I could do a V-carve, which is what I'm going to end up doing for this piece, but you could, as I mentioned before, use one of those other bits, either the ball nose or the downcut bit, and then I'd hit the path of the profile tool and I already have it here.

It's a 1 16 inch end mill, that's my tip. I cut, so I clicked on the cutting depth of 5 hundredths of an inch, so it won't be very deep that way. I got that nice, clean pocket, like I showed on that Star Wars

sign

earlier, and this is how I did it. and then I would just go ahead and click calculate and it would calculate me like it would seem um, however for me, I'm going to show that vcarve option, so I said before how I did a lot of this with just vcarve. Well, I still have the correct vector selected.

Could click flat depth for everyone who knows seattle sport.

sign

s, I did the sailors logo and all that, I clicked on flat depth and what it did was it didn't continue until the full V carving bit went all the way down to get the full V and I just went ahead and chose you. I know again like five hundredths of an inch, so it went down a little bit but it became flat, so it has a flat depth, it doesn't have that deep recess, so it's an option if you want to have a flat, just understand that you're going to I have to sand a little more if you use that V carving bit, so I'm just going to do the full depth.

I have enough thickness of

material

to do the full v carving here, however if you don't have the thickness I recommend using that v carving mode, just a flat depth of 500 inches or whatever works for you or could make a pocket tool path and then I could select whatever that is, so if I want to make a ball nose drill bit uh, that looked very clean uh, you know, 1 16 inch or I can make that router that the cut down is going to be very clean and then you would just click select and then again click calculate and you would have a better idea. of what this is going to look like, let's go ahead and show the preview, so it shows you what it's going to look like here with the profile, so this won't be the deep V cut, it'll just be um. a flat, so I'll give you an idea, it's really simple, pretty straightforward and, like, that's what it's going to look like, so I can play with it if I don't love the look and I'll just give you an idea, so there you have it.

It's a quick little tutorial on v-carve. If you want more information on this in future videos, let me know in the comments. If you have other videos with some great

tips

, leave them in the comments section. Alright, the next step is the last one. but not least i just want to take a quick look at uc cnc so this is the software that actually runs the cnc machine. I will have more videos and more content on this in the future, if you are looking for more let me know in the comments. but here it is, you can see me at the same time I'm running it on uccnc.

I'm running it on my x and y so they're zero zero and now I'm going into that my piece and tightening it. I'm getting right where I want it, here, everything matches up correctly, so I'm using the tap tool,

making

sure I get my z clearance, set up, so if this sounds like too much for you and it's overwhelming, it really isn't, really. it is not. I'll do some more basic videos in the future. If you are new and don't be intimidated by the project, but once you have everything set up, you just have to find your program and that's it, load your program that you already made in vetric, this is the one we made before and I load it and normally you would check your tool step, you would do all that, I'm not going to do that here.

I'm not going to look at it, but I loaded it up and now I'm going to press run, so uh, so just go back and watch your machine take off and you really see that cnc is cool, being able to control everything from the computer is one of the things that they have the i2r machines and they don't have many other units, so I'll talk more about that in the future, but here's the one we designed together and here's carving and here, oh. Oh my gosh, this is just a piece of construction grade leather, uh, we have the V-tip, this is grade 60, so it got really deep, really deep here, but it had the thickness to handle it, but this It just shows a stain, a piece of

wood

that was stained and what it looks like with contrast at this point.

You know, I could leave it like that. It could end. You could also do a little masking and paint it white for that offset, but that's it, thank you very much. Thank you imagination and reality for

making

this possible, of course, obviously with the CNC machine, but you know, sponsor this video and make it possible for me to be able to make these cool things with some amazing CNC machines, so real quick, I want talk about what I think. What makes them so amazing is the fact that it is such a simple setup. I was able to get this machine up and running in no time.

You know there's the customer service onboarding call. Is incredible. Any problem. They have training calls available to teach you how to do it. use the machine software all that kind of stuff, they can do remote logins, if that's your need, but just some great features, it's a robust machine, it's fantastic, so it has smaller units available, these are the b series, but you know if you have a smaller space two by two two by three and then you get to uh this is the unit that I have so this is the b24 um so it's an amazing unit with so many possibilities and so many other options, but many thanks to i2r and look forward to more cnc content in the future, there you have it, a semi complete introduction to sign making with a great cnc beginner project, a great beginner project so if you don't have one yet , I'm going to make some. more videos, some more CNC videos that really explore everything this machine can do and there are so many possibilities.

I'll be going back to a lot more hard

wood

s, which is really what I do. If you watch my channel again, consider subscribing if you want. I enjoyed it if you found value, it's usually hardwoods, so I started with some really fun projects, but I'll walk you through my journey as I learn the machine, if there's anything I left out, if there's anything you think would add value, uh , both. for me and my craft, but also for future videos, leave a comment below, you know if it's other videos where I should see different ideas or your own opinion on something that is more efficient, and just other ideas, anyway, make

signs

with a cnc.

Woodworking is woodworking, it's just a different type of woodworking, so anyway, thanks for watching, see you next time.