The old sign is down. It took about an hour and a half to get our steel bracket system installed and everything went together nicely. Best of luck Adam with your new sign – See you at Fetch! – Steve
Category Archives: Custom Signage
Fetch Sign – Woof 6 (the final Woof)
It’s our last day with the Fetch Sign – we are finishing up the details and doing the final assembly. All the parts are painted so Peter now has to complete the pins and glue all of the elements in place – I’ll do a little welding and we should be done.
We really want to make the collar ring look as real as possible so we shaped a 4′ length of steel rod inserted into the hole in the dog tag and welded a plate on it so we could easily secure it to the structure. We ran a bolt through the top of the sign to hold it in place.
Here she is – Ready to hang!
It’s time for dinner. Hmm where should I go…..
-Steve
Fetch Sign – Woof 5
All the parts are completed and they’re off to our paint shop. We use a PPG Waterborne Automotive Paint System which gets great results and is much less harmful to the environment.
Holin, our master painter, has prepped the metal parts in our bead blaster, he then cleans them with a metal prep and they are ready for primer and paint.
The foam parts are lightly sanded and we brush on a thick HDU primer. Two coats of the primer then paint.
Fetch Sign – Woof 4
Today we are fabricating the interior frame of our sign. We are using 1″ Square steel tubing.
We’ve pocket a raceway into the back of each sign panel. Peter is setting the steel pieces in place, we’ll tack weld them inside the sign for a perfect fit then take it out and complete our welds.
Here it is all welded up and ready for assembly.
Fetch Sign – Woof 3
Now it’s time to cut the elements that make up the face of the sign.
The first element is the 3D bone which will have the Fetch name contour pocketed about an 1/8″ into the surface. Our rendering shows the layout and depth of the lettering.
The bone is also carved out of 2″ HDU.
We’ll then inset painted aluminum letters into that pocket for a real nice effect. This will allow us to easily have a different paint finishes on the bone and the letters.
We are cutting the “tag” face out of .063 aluminum. The text will then be cut out of the aluminum – when glued in place we’ll see the background color of the sign panel come through.
And here it is! almost done – next is onto the welding of the frame and mounting system.
Fetch Sign – Woof 2
Files are ready! – our HDU is on the MultiCam table and we’re ready to cut. We are going to end up with a 3″ sign panel once the two halves are glued together so we’ve planed our 2″ HDU down 1/2″ then cut the face.
We’ll insert out steel tubing, glue the panels together and our panel is done. Now it’s on to “The Bone”.
Fetch Sign – Woof 1
It’s an exciting day here at KDF. We were asked by our good friends at Fetch Bar & Grill in Warwick, NY to update their sign based on a new logo that was just refreshed by our favorite designer, Nanette Hoey.
After some quick sketches we designed the internal frame that will be made from welded 1″ steel tubing – this will be incredibly strong and make for a very simple installation.
Our files are created in Enroute Pro and prepped for cutting. We like to have all of the elements assemble in 3D before going to cut to ensure it’s exactly what we want.
Next step is to start cutting! Stay tuned.
Wright Family Farm Sign
We were very excited about this sign. Our friends at the Wright Family Farm in Warwick, NY needed to replace an old sign on the main road in front of the farm. This farm has been around for over 100 years so we felt very privileged to be involved.
So we stepped in to help with the task by creating a new design that would incorporate everything they had to offer. Nanette jumped on the design and came up with a wonderful sign design that everyone was extremely happy with. Now we have to make it….
We had to come up with a way to get the background detail in while keeping the sign dimensional. It was very important to make it really stand out for people driving by. We decided to UV print the details of the back to dibond then mount dimensional letters to the face.
Peter takes the 2D artwork and converts to 3D in Enroute Pro. Then we are ready to carve the rest of the sign in two parts. we then glue them together with the hangers installed.
Off to the paint room where Holin will paint the sign with a latex a enamel.
A little bit of assembly and we’re ready to deliver.
Best of Luck with your new sign!
– Steve
Sign Shop Sign
Our good friend Robin from Foley Sign Shop in Orangeburg, NY was in the market for an oversized dimensional sign at her great new location. We were happy to work with her on it and had a little fun with her great logo.
The bed on our Multicam 3000 is 4’x8′ – the sign will be 5’x8′ so we are going to have to piece it together. We are cutting the Palette out of 2″ 15# Precision Board HDU and the letters out of 1.5″ 30# Precision Board HDU.
To lighten the sign we hog out some material.
Once We’ve assembled the palette we cut the letters and other elements. The Foley text is cut from PVC which we’ll pin mount floating off the surface of the palette.
We test all the parts and we have a perfect fit! Time for paint.
I guess this is the view from the sign face….
One more coat of color, some details and gloss coats to go!
John got it installed in no time.
Good luck with your new sign Robin!
– Steve
Adding a little character to a sign
When working on larger projects it’s the little details that really make the difference for both the client and for us! Our current project is no different. We are creating a “themed” environment for the Fox Island Creamery & Café in Hewitt, NJ. We’ve created a nice little storyline and have developed some characters which should make the experience fun for both the kids and parents.
This sign is for a little beaver character that we created and his boat company. The Chubby Beaver Boat Building Co.
We started with a rough sketch, now I knew we would need a boat, a beaver and the back of the sign. So we started there.
Peter worked directly in Enroute Pro to create the shape and used some fun font styles for the carvings. We carved the sign out of 15# Precision Board HDU on our MultiCam 3000 CNC. Once the CNC was done with it’s job Peter hand carved the edges for the “beaver got to it” texture.
We sealed the foam with Aqua Resin, then primed and spray painted our base coat.
Using latex paint we painted two coats of a darker glaze to get a nice aged look on the wood.
Now are sign back is complete and its time to move on to our beaver!
I’ll carve the basics out of 15# Precison Board so I used Mudbox 3D Software to create the body and facial structure of the beaver. Once carved I used Magic Sculpt for the details.
Hmm, I think my little guy could use some glasses. I’ll use the 3D printer for this little detail. I printed 2 pairs different sizes, the larger ones look best.
We most definitely need a boat for this sign. This is a perfect task for our 3D Printer as well. I found a basic 3D boat online – downloaded the file and sized it perfectly to fit our beaver. 4 hours later we had our 3D printed boat. I love technology!
A few more details and paint and we are all done – Can’t wait to hang it!
