Evening everyone! I'm back with another installment for Rustic DIY Projects! So today's project is an LED sign I made for a patient at an assisted care facility I volunteer at. This isn't a conventional project in the sense that it will be very hard to reproduce without the help of a CNC machine (which is what I used). I found out my patient's interests then carved out related images on some 1/4" birch plywood then made a frame to seat them in and a box to house the LEDs. I don't expect many people to go out and try replicating this however it's something interesting I made so I decided I may as well share it.
Tools/Supplies Used
Drill
Impact Drill
Router
Router Table
1/4" Straight Flute Router Bit
CNC Machine
Forstner Bit
Kreg Jig
Kreg Screws x 18
Clamps x infinity (because you can never have too many clamps)
Love x 1
Step One
So the first step is pretty easy, I just thought up a few ideas I could relate back to him and found some design concepts to match them. You can find designs like this through google or your can make them yourself using something as simple as a paint program. After I picked my images I took some 1/4" birch plywood and cut them into 12" x 12" squares. I clamped them into my CNC machine and carved out the images using an open source software called Easel. The person I'm making this for used to have a German Shepherd, used to be a carpenter, lived in Texas his whole life, and played the accordion in a Tejano band. So I chose all these images for his sign (with the exception of an accordion because I had no idea how to design and carve one out in a way that would look good).
Note: Yes I know there's a random anchor in the first couple pics here. I hadn't had the time to carve out his fourth image so I used that as a quick substitute for the picture, you'll see in the rest of the pictures I decided to go with a silhouette of Texas.
Step Two
I didn't do a great job of documenting the lengths of the boards I used in this step (well actually I just didn't do it at all), but for this step I just bought some 1 x 3 common boards from Home Depot and routed some 1/4" dados into them to create a slot to slide the panels into. Did one down the center then secured two smaller boards to the sides using kreg screws to make it into a cross, these have dados on both sides to allow all the panels to seat in them. After that I just measured out an outer frame, mitered the corners at a 45 degree angle, routed some more 1/4" dados (this time only on the inside edge) then secured them all into place with some more kreg screws.Note: Normally you would probably apply wood glue with some brad nails in the corners as well, however in case he didn't like one or more of the panels I picked for him, I can easily disassemble this and replace them since they're only secured together with kreg screws.
Step Three
Now that I'd finished the front of the board I needed something to house the LED light strips... So I had a few options run through my head but the one I decided to go with was to just build a small box for the back. So, again, I didn't measure any of this out but this will vary depending on how big you would want to build yours should you decide to attempt something like this. This part was easy just cut the boards to size (somewhere between 25-30 inches long), kreg screwed them together, then kreg screwed them to the front board to secure everything together. After all that was in place I used a forstner bit to drill a hole in the bottom to slide the LEDs through. Luckily they came with double sided tape so it was easy for me to just stick them to the sides as you can see below. I then secured the receiver to the bottom with some nails and at that point it was pretty much done.
I forgot to take a picture of this step but I cut and secured one last board along the inner top edge using kreg screws. After that I attached a saw tooth mounting bracket to the middle using some screws and that's what I used to mount it to the wall. NOW it's all done!
Hope you enjoyed my "How To" on how to make this awesome wall decoration! It can be a pain in the ass but well worth the effort. Feel free to share this link with any of your other friends you think may be interested! Also don't forget to like, share, and follow me on social media! And don't be afraid to share what you made either! I like to see what kind of cool stuff other people come up with! And if you have any questions, concerns, or remarks you're more than welcome to leave a comment in the comment tab or my email if you want to do so more personally!
Follow me on Facebook to stay up to date with all my latest news and projects @
And don't forget to check out my Pinterest page too @
Plenty more cool stuff to come so stay tuned!
No comments:
Post a Comment