How to carve a wood sign

       By: Mark Di Saverio
Posted: 2010-09-18 06:47:38
The first thing to do is to sketch the design of your carved wood design in a drawing program or onto a sheet of paper. If you are going the paper route it is best to sketch your design on a sheet of paper with a grid pre printed on it so that you can transfer the design onto the wood. When you transfer the design you can scale up your design by making the grid squares larger on your wood sign base. The sign base is made by getting a piece of plywood and gluing the base wood to the plywood side by side using a wood glue such as titebond or another waterproof glue. The base wood can be any kind of wood with a suitable grain for sandblasting or carving such as vertical grain cedar pine mahogany oak or walnut. Once the sign base is made you can layout your design by transferring it onto the wood by pencil or by putting small pin prick holes in the transfer paper and then placing this paper over the wood base you spread a tranfer powder or chalk over the pin prick holes thus transferring the design.If you are going to sandblast your design into the wood you must first cover the wood with two layers of duct tape before the transfer process. Once your have transferred and hand drawn the design you can cut the design out of the duct tape using an exacto knife or razor blade. make sure you leave the tape where you want the wood preserved and remove the tape where you want the wood to be eaten away by the sandblasting. The duct tape acts like a simple stencil. once the carved wood sign has had the stencil applied it can then be sandblasted to raise the grain. Once you are done with the sandblasting you can remove the stencil mask's and finish carve your sign with rasp and wood chisles. The sign can now be painted and sealed.
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