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 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.

Here's the full set of letters, with a small box of mounting hardware.

My brother tried them out on his wall.

And here they are up at the curling club, one above each sheet's scoreboard. A closer look at the E, on its standoffs:

The Charlottesville office's version came first. It started on the computer in June 2022, where I was playing around with the design and wondering about proportions. Here's a render of one of the versions I tried (this one has Durham, NC in the corner).

In July I kept playing with the nesting software, which figures out how to pack the letters into the smallest space on a plate. It's kind of fun to see what it comes up with.

Then I cut the logo out of quarter-inch aluminum on the plasma table. The first cut failed, so I recut over the failure. It wasn't perfectly aligned, hence the slight irregularities, but it's a very good cut given that.

Here's the lowercase k after powder coating. I obviously put a bit too much powder on, but generally I like the way it came out.

I came back to the Charlottesville sign in the fall.

The Kevel logo, plus "Charlottesville, VA", on a navy panel: white aluminum letters, and a K made of two folded orange aluminum ribbons. I built it in the last days of September and the first days of October 2022, and finished it with a few minutes of sneaking away to the shop on the morning of October 3, since I was going to Charlottesville the next day. It still needed hanging hardware, and perhaps a few touches of paint to fix the flaws that probably only I can see.

More than a year later I made the one for James. In September 2023 I cut the parts on the plasma cutter, and here they are fresh out of the water table.

In October I put together a full-size layout out of taped-together sheets of printed paper on the floor.

Later that month I was at the makerspace and used the laser, the one tool I didn't have at home (I fixed that later), to make a hardboard template to help with aligning the pieces.

In November came the bending, and having done it before helped, though there were still a couple of things I had to remind myself of. The test bend went fine, shown here next to one of the laser-cut template pieces.

A second attempt a bit later that day went fine too.

The next morning it was coming along, with a single bent and polished k mounted on the navy board and still a bunch left to do.

I got the mounting hardware sorted out, so there are no more fragile 3D printed standoffs like the ones on the Charlottesville sign. Next up was powder coating.

And on November 26, 2023, it was done. Sorry it took so long, James.

The logo was cut on my Mostly Printed CNC router, which I set up under the deck for the job.

Here it is at work: a wider view first, then a close-up of the bit going through the wood.

Not every shape could be routed, though. For the rest, I used the CNC as a big plotter to draw the outlines on the boards, and then cut them out on either the band saw or the scroll saw. Or both.

A few days later, the cut-out pieces of the logo laid out on the round galvanized disc on the plasma table. It was coming along nicely.

Here's the sign up on the wall at the store, with the installation still underway.

And Toby and me in front of it.

I love looking at it every time I go into his Vienna store.