New Projects 2

The next sign will be a lobby sign. I am building this on spec so it may end up on my display wall.
My intent is to build it and then try to sell it to the Bear Hotel and if they are not interested I may try the Black Bear Diner.

Heres the sketches:

This is the first sketch but I didn't like the bear so I drew another

I like this one a lot better

I then went into Coreldraw and laid out an oval and the lettering (a grunge font found online) for the log end and sent the file to my Summa D-60 plotter. I then cut out the pattern and spray glued it to the polystyrene foam.




The next step was to use a hotwire knife to cut out the foam shape. At first I used a cheap foam cutter I picked up at Michael's but it wasn't up to the task, this foam is much more dense than what the knife was made for, so on to the home made hot wire I built using an old transformer and dimmer, it worked much better. there are many commercial cutters available but I had all the parts here so I just built rather than buy.




I then redrew the lettering and cut them out of 1 inch foam on my scroll saw and I grooved the edge of the oval to start the bark texture. I then glued the letters down with a product called magic smooth a two part epoxy with consistency of heavy petroleum jelly, made by the same folks that make the magic sculpt putty that I use like clay in my sculptures









I'll make more updates as I continue on these projects

New Projects

Today I started two new projects (like I needed anymore), one has been stewing for awhile and the other came to me last night as I went to bed.

the first one is a mailbox stand for my parents. Several years ago I painted a large rural mailbox with a three mast sailing ship on the open ocean, they never used it because they lived in town and had no place to put it, they have moved out about 6 or 7 miles outside of town and are now going to use it.

I will build a support to look like pilings with a pelican sitting on one and some tidal zone critters on it. below is one of the sketches I did to get a feel for the project and how it should look.



I looked up regulations for mailbox height and found it to be 41 to 45 inches from the ground to the bottom of the mailbox. Sono-tubes come 48" tall so I cut 8" off one and screwed that piece to the other one to set my height. I then fiberglassed it and set it aside to cure.

Later I will plug the ends with styrofoam and start applying epoxy clay so that I can texture them to look like old weathered pilings.

Busy, busy, busy

well it's been a few busy weeks. Working at the Bear Hotel, painting windows, and some double sided signage.

The Bigfoot mystery build is just about done and ready for the public to solve the mystery. The biker bears (the Wild Bunch) are placed in their spots downtown with the murals and some miscellaneous props, bigfoot's home is almost ready to be furnished and the twinkie enhancement lab is just about done, and the miners shaft is looking way cool, quite the bit of eye candy for the folks and visitors of Grants Pass.

new video

here's a video of the laser prop at the Bear Hotel

twinkie laser

LASERS!!!

The Twinkie Enhancement Laboratory is in full gear. The lab will look as if it were built in to a cavern just off the residence of Bigfoot.








A few days ago I mounted an old eureka vacuum cleaner, I picked up at the Goodwill, to the ceiling, and since then have been adding details and rearranging the parts to look like an articulated laser arm to cut Twinkie's for experimentation . I've also been creating a control panel where other experiments will take place. Del Hearn created the enclosure that the laser will be seen operating in, and Bob Eding is doing the rock work around my "clean" area.








As usual I am using a variety of found and purchased items that I believe will add to the effect, along with magic sculpt epoxy clay, precision board, sheet metal, wood, and pvc pipe. there will be a simulated laser beam using blue EL wire from Cool Neon.

Tools

A few weeks ago I saw an interesting item on a fellow signmakers blog. I did a little research and found out they were called painter's pyramids. I went to the site and found that they were quite inexpensive and thought that I may buy some, but every time I went to the site with the intent to buy I was dissuaded for some reason.

Sat April 30 I was at the bookstore browsing some magazines and in the readers tips section I found an article describing a home made version so today while the battery on the mower was charging I made some.

I had some scrap MDO laying in the shop so I ripped it to 3 inch wide strips, then set up the mitre saw to 30 degrees and started cutting little triangles, I then went to the drill press and using a 3/16 bit drilled three holes in a row and using a carving knife made slots.



I have a couple hundred feet of 3/16 rod for my sculptures so I used some to join to blocks together as seen.

these should prove invaluable the next time I need to paint both sides of a project in a hurry.

nothing was done with any great amount of precision, and if you need bigger just scale it up, the slots are not straight and perfect, and a large hole may do as well, it just needs to be big enough to allow the triangle to lean over and bear against the rod or dowel, probably a 1/2 hole for 3/16 rod.



One advantage of the commercial product is that it has tabs that can be attached to the work surface preventing them from sliding around as you try to put your project in place, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Not too bad for an hours labor, I got to use up some scraps, and I didn't have to wait for the mail man.