Cursing Norm - The saga comes to a close

[UKTony]

Serves me right for watching today's show after work while her multitude was in the room.

"That looks really easy, can you make one at the weekend as a present for our niece" she says as Norm uses a router freehand to carve letters.

Freehand is out i will make a pigs ear of it so looking at the Trend catalouge they make plastic templates....dam expensive and the wrong size?

So looks like some template making on the scroll saw tommorrow before i get some piece and quiet, thank christ she only has 4 letters in her name


:twisted: :twisted:

PS Has anyone actually done this

 

[DaveL]

Tony,

I have made a pair of chairs for our grandchildren, here is one:

I printed the name the right size and stuck it on the wood and then freehanded the router over the top. It only took 3 or 4 practise goes on scrap bits before I did the real chair back. I used a cove cutter and then used paint to pick out the letters, before oiling the whole chair.

 

[Neomorph]

Serves me right for watching today's show after work while her multitude was in the room.

"That looks really easy, can you make one at the weekend as a present for our niece" she says as Norm uses a router freehand to carve letters.

Freehand is out i will make a pigs ear of it so looking at the Trend catalouge they make plastic templates....dam expensive and the wrong size?

So looks like some template making on the scroll saw tommorrow before i get some piece and quiet, thank christ she only has 4 letters in her name


:twisted: :twisted:

PS Has anyone actually done this

I've used the Trend templates and they are ok. Rutlands do a sign making kit for £29.95

http://www.rutlands.co.uk/cgi-bin/psProdDet.cgi/DKA41

 

[Gill]

The Trend templates do a decent enough job:

One day, I'll scroll some templates of my own; it'd be nice to be able to route lower case letters. However, I don't think that would be quite so simple a task as it sounds because it'll need very accurate cutting. I should imagine you could get through quite a bit of woodfiller making your own templates.

I've considered using a router freehand and decided against it. Materials and the time it would take to master the technique are too expensive for me.

Gill

 

[UKTony]

My arm has been twisted and ive ordered the Rutlands kit for 29.95 looks a far sight better value than the Trend one.....so watch this space for my efforts

 

[Gill]

Supposing I did decide to scroll cut my own templates...

Is there a way to set the font in either MS Word or Open Office Writer so that I know it will be the correct width for my router guide bush?

Tony - I'm looking forward to seeing how the Dakota jig turns out . It's always intersting to run comparisons.

Gill

 

[Neomorph]

One of the things you have to think about Gill is the fact that some letters and numbers need multiple templates to make a single letter/number. The number 8 for instance needs the upper o and the lower O to make the 8. It's because of this that I didn't make my own like I at first wanted to (I mean how hard could it be... just print off some big letters and then pin through them onto the wood... DOH! WRONG AGAIN ).

It's ironic that I found the Dakota ones after I had bought the Trend ones. The Dakota one even allows you to setup a full word which is even better. The Trend ones are just single letters... Hmmm... That's a point... How does the Dakota one deal with multi template letters? :-k

 

[Chris Knight]

Gill,

I think the answer to your font question is probably no. Most fonts use different widths for different parts of the letter. If you can find a font (there are thousands on the web, many of which are free) with a uniform width, then it would be easy.

I occasionally use a font designer, but it is not free (cost about $50 if I recall) and with this one could design a font to have any characteristics you wish although it might be a slow job and unless you wanted to do a lot of it, is probably not worth it.

Perhaps you might like to pick up carving? then you can carve whatever font takes your fancy and crisply carved letters look better than routed ones IMHO.

 

[Gill]

Perhaps you might like to pick up carving?

No thanks; it's boring ! Mind, I do appreciate the work and skill that goes into carved work.

Gill

 

[DaveL]

Gill,

When I did the chairs I used a font called BORN that was on my machine, trouble is I have no idea what software it came with, could have even been part of XP!

I do have a CD of public domain fonts. There is a similar looking font on it, so if you would like copy to play with just ask.

 

[mudman]

Okay, had to have a play with Word and see if it could be done and think that this may just do it:

• 1. Insert/picture/wordart
  2. Select the first in the displayed gallery.
  3. Change the font to Arial. This appears to keep the widths of the horizontals, verticals etc constant.
  4. You then need to display a grid. On the picture toolbar this is on the Draw dropdown menu.
  5. This displays the grid properties box. Change the grid spacing settings to be equal to the size of your guidebush.
  6. Now align your word on the grid and then alternately stretch the width and height until the vertical and horizontal letter parts match the underlying grid size.

Your word should hopefully now match the router guidebush size when printed out.
I haven't been able to make any measurements but using a coffee stirrer and a pencil seems to confirm that the Arial font keeps all the sizes correct.

 

[UKTony]

So here we are....day off work spent the morning installing the new SIP bandsaw and then get round to playing with the Rutland Dakota Sign Making Set

First impression is good value for money all the letters/numbers are individual both large and small 1.5 and 2.5 inches plenty of extras too

Manual is ok text is confusing so followed the diagrams so far so good

Now the fun starts, Housten we have a problem....That lovely set of plastic Trend guide bushes you have are not long enough you need the nice shiny one's that are 1/2 inch long.

So here we are about to order the guide bushes at 6.95 each from Rutlands when one turns a few pages of the catalouge and finds an even more impressive bit of kit called a signcrafter

http://www.rutlands.co.uk/cgi-bin/psProdDet.cgi/1256

and what a suprise this one is £10.00 more expensive include's both guide bushes, a cutter and a clear subbase

Two guess's what i will be saying to Rutlands on Monday
:twisted:

 

[Neomorph]

Shouldn't your sign test shown "OOPS" instead :lol:

Yeah, I only noticed the more expensive version the other day... Why the hell they don't show them on the same page is anyone's guess. :?

 

[UKTony]

and so the saga comes to a close, the ever wonderful Rutlands took pity on me and agreed to refund the Dakota set for the Milescraft set which arrived today, its £10.00 more can make a sign twice the size and includes a clear Turnlock system (similar to a Trend Unibase but you dont need to screw bushes in) and a cove router bit with a longer than average shank.

Of course once you take into account the additional £12.00 delivery charges ive had to pay to get to this stage, this has been an expensive excercise. The good news is it works and ive made a sign.......

Ive taken a few pics so i will find some time tommorrow to write a small buying guide on both products