My brother asked for a set of letters to mark the lanes at the curling club he helps run. A through E and "eH", to mark the sheets of ice at a curling club. Yes, there really is a "sheet e", and both a "sheet a" and a "sheet eh". The last is pronounced in the Canadian fashion. I made them in July 2026.
Cutting the letters (July 2026)
This was basically the first "real" job on my new Gweike M3 Pro fiber laser. The kerf on it is so thin it's ridiculous. The outline of this first 'e' looks rough because the DXF I imported had a bunch of bumpiness in it, which I didn't realize until after the cut; I thought it was the laser, but it was actually faithfully reproducing flaws in the font. The other letters were much better, but even this isn't bad.
The pins
The letters stand off the wall on aluminum pins. I needed to make about 25 of these. Here's one, with a grooved and chamfered head at the top and a threaded end at the bottom. Making the other end is three operations (groove, chamfer, deburr) plus chucking and unchucking, and I was pretty happy with how fluid I got it. The threads came from a shop-made tailstock die holder, which lets me knock them out quickly on a bunch of pins.
The full set
Here's the full set of letters, with a small box of mounting hardware.
My brother tried them out on his wall.
Mounted (July 2026)
And here they are up at the curling club, one above each sheet's scoreboard. A closer look at the E, on its standoffs:
