Making my shop's sign

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"The goal was to make a sign for my guitar shop, but only spend 10 bucks."

I have always believed in the "McGuyver method", as it exposes the simplicity of nature and encourages us to create simplicity in our lives. Through this perspective, I have learned that there usually is an more economical approach to just about everything in life. You just have to abandon the troubleshooting thought processes your mind has been conditioned into executing so often and you can start to see that life will be so much easier to navigate. Anywho, on to the sign.

I think I spent 8 bucks on one wood stud. I originally planned to route the design out of the wood, which would have kept the cost under 10. But after I attempted the routing, it became very clear it was going to be more work than it was worth. My step-father always said "work smarter, not harder". So, that's when I decided to use a paper stencil and spray paint the design on. This meant buying paint, because I did not have the purple color I wanted and brought the cost to nearly 30 bucks after the clear coat and base coat. Oh well. I still feel I conserved and deployed the method.

How I made the stencil

Since I have a laser printer, I created the design in vector, I was able to scale it to the size of the wood's dimensions. Once I had the black base coat down, I could add the stencil. I printed on business card stock, which is much thicker than normal printing paper. I did not want any wrinkles happening during the project.

1. In Illustrator, I cut the design into 8.5"x11" segments so I could print it at any scale. You just piece each segment back together after printing.
2. To help get everything perfectly straight, I added crop marks on each segment. This marks where I can put a tac on each segment to line them up together on the sign.
3. Pre-poke each crop mark on a seperate piece of scrap wood.
4. Next I cut a majority of the margins off each segment.
5. Adding each segment from top-left to bottom-right, I used a light dose of spray adhesive to mate each segment to the surface of the wood. This was the tough part and I ended up starting over a few times. This step takes some practice unfortunately. Maybe try practicing on a separate scrap piece. The tacs are the critical part here and that is where the pre-poking helps. I put the tacs on from left to right. The thick paper proved to make this part fairly easy.
6. Once it was dry, about 10 minutes, I was able to cut the design out with an exacto knife. This part took me many days to finish as I wanted to take my time to be precise, but also the size of my sign and detail in the design, created a lot of  work finishing this step. If you had a smaller or simpler design this step could take mere minutes to finish.
7. Once the design was cut out, I was able to spray my first coast of purple. I did quite a few coats as I wanted a more raised look and more life.
8. This was the most stubborn part: getting the stencil off. I suppose there are liquid ways of doing this, but I went with a heater and my knife to peel it off. This is where spraying the adhesive lightly pays off. The lighter the spray, the easier to get off. But you need to make sure you have even spray because this is a stencil after all. So there is a balance to how much.
9. Now with the stencil off, I could clear coat everything.
10. Then comes cutting the outer shape of the sign itself. I used a jigsaw to get the larger parts and then used my router to get the final shape. Make several passes. Then sand to really make it shine!
11. Some of the edges of the paint get a little wear from the router, so I clear coat again.
12. Lastly, it's time to seal the backside with teak oil. You can use whatever seal you want obviously.

Thanks for stopping by to read my blog! Stay cool!

Hover over the pics to enlarge.