Laughing Tortoise Sign: Part 1

The Fox & Hounds Pub project included a number of fictional beer advertisements. The pub is British, its timbers are, reportedly, from an actual pub in Britain. We needed these fictional signs to match this theme:

A quick internet search revealed that the Galapogos Islands were, apparently, discovered by a British sea captain who was blown off course in a fierce storm in 1593. This little tidbit inspired the “Laughing (Galapogos) Tortoise Beer.” (A beer that is best enjoyed at a very slow pace!)

We designed the sign in Illustrator — importing the vectors into EnRoute. The tortoise was just an outline at this point and would be hand carved and sculpted once the rest of the sign was routed.

The sign was routed from two layers of 1.5" thick 30 lbs. Precision Board HDU (high density urethane). To build the file, we separated the vectors for each layer and created reliefs for each element.

The next screen shot shows the various files as we merged (highest) them together. The blue outline is the base file while the red outlines are the files we merged to it.

We also created an oval with the”laughing tortoise” text.

We also built the scroll and “beer” lettering. It was machined flat since we planned to do a little hand sculpting later to finish the curved ends of the scroll and blend it into the bottom layer.

It didn’t take long to finish up the file and send it to the router.

See you next week!

Fox Head Sign

Our Fox & Hounds Restaurant project included several sculpted trees. A sign hangs from a branch in one of these trees.

As a first step in creating the sign, my father opened the driftwood bitmap from our Texture Magic: Classic Collection in Photoshop.

Then he used the warp tool to shape the bitmap into a gentle 'S' curve.

Once he was happy with the texture, he traced an outline with vectors and then imported them (and the modified bitmap) into EnRoute.

He also opened, copied and pasted the fox medallion he had previously completed. He resized it and added some shoulder pieces to make the sign flow. He added a sandblasted woodgrain texture to the shoulders.

My dad also created a separate relief for the lettering border and added some domed lettering.

Finally, he created a second copy of the sign and flipped it before adding the lettering to each side. (This way the two sides fit together to form a double sided sign.)

As you can see, the sign routed up quite nicely.

See you next week!

Fox Head Barrel

As part of the design process for our Fox & Hounds Pub project, we created a few samples. These pieces also helped to ensure the contractor and trades were on the same page and knew what to expect from us. Our first sample was a fox medallion.

My father created the vectors for the barrel in EnRoute and then used the jigsaw tool (pictured below) to create the staves of the barrel.

He created the outer ring and the barrel top first. (As usual) he used the render button to double check his work.

Then dad selected the outer staves of the barrel and built each one separately (with slight variations in height). As usual, he created each one as a separate relief.

Then he imported the sandblasted wood grain bitmap (from our Texture Magic: Classic Collection).

Since bitmaps can't be rotated inside of EnRoute, dad selected everything else and rotated the reliefs to apply the textures to the barrel staves. At this point everything was merged together for form one relief.

To create the fox, dad used a stock STL file. He resized and positioned it before merging it to the barrel top he had created previously.

And just like that it, was ready to tool path and send off to the CNC router.