Sign Making 101

This past weekend my 15yr old son promised a lady that he could make a sign for her parents front yard by this Wednesday (tomorrow). Course it would have been nice if he had checked with me first to see if I had anything planned. He decided it would be out of Eastern Red Cedar - at least the sign would be. When I asked where he would get the wood he casually pointed at my lumber stack and said - there are three cedar boards buried in the back that you were going to use to make my daughter Shae a blanket chest some day (the cedar would be used as a lining to a cherry chest). Somehow it seems I lost the argument even before it began.

So we dug out the first board, cut a couple of pieces off the one end then jointed and planed the boards and edge glued them together. Having never made a sign myself we went over several options - go out and buy a letter template set for the router ~$55, thereby eliminating all profit - okay he'd have twisted that around so I bought the templates and he pockets the cash. Go freehand using the router a v-bit and follow a sheet with the words printed on it and glued to the face of the board. And finally using the small router and a 1/8" bit, trace the outside of the letters and then take out the background about a 1/4" to 3/8" using the router working out from the letters and leaving a border. The last would take the most time but make one awesome sign. He decided to go with #2, printout then follow the letters with the router basically centering the bit on the stroke of the letters.

I set up the router and test cut on a piece of scrap till we were happy with the depth for the smaller letters then he practiced a bit then cut the smallest letters with it and the tails on the apostrophes and quotes. Then we dropped the bit a bit more, tested then he cut the next set of words. And finally one more drop and then he cut the last set. He did all the routing I just showed him how and got him going on a scrap piece. 

Then yesterday (Monday night) we trimmed up the board centering the words left and right and top and bottom. Then came the fun - the sign posts. He wanted to use pressure treated 4x4 but fankly I thought that 4x4 was too heavy for the sign itself - out of proportion and second I hate working with pressure treated lumber especially if I have to resaw it to smaller dimensions. I wanted to use Western Red Cedar instead. Off to Lowes - well our local Lowes doesn't stock much in the way of cedar except a few rough boards in the dimensional lumber section (1x2, 1x4, 1x6, etc). So then I thought maybe in landscaping. Well we struck out there as well - except that they had cedar split rail fencing. We found one rail that was very roughly split as a 3x3. We bought it, cut it in half and knocked off the tenons, jointed 2 sides square to each other then planed it down till we got it looking square ~ 2-1/4" square. We left it as long as possible figuring the people can shorten the posts when they install it if needed - hard to add more once its cut off.

I routed some mortises for the sign to sit in and Johannes drilled three holes per side to pin the sign into the mortise. But only through the back of the posts and the sign and into but not through the front of the posts. Then he spent the rest of today sanding and applying Cabott Spar Varnish - interior/exterior to the sign. He did the first coat unassembled so that all parts could get coated. Then we assembled and glued the pins in place. Some glue squeezed out into the mortise but with a coat of varnish inside the mortise and on the sign itself hopefully it won't create a situation where the sign can't expand. I had Johannes elongate the top and bottom holes in the sign itself while leaving the center hole alone. This was intended to allow the sign board to expand and contract seasonally while remaining centered in the mortise.

  

He just put on another coat of varnish. I told him to lightly sand with synthetic steel wool tomorrow morning and put on a 3rd coat. Hopefully then he can deliver late in the afternoon.