Bar Plaque – EPICS

Students

Alex Dickinson
Sociology, 2019

Project Description

I made a plaque that is meant to hang in a house, specifically in a bar-like area. Since it was made for me, I included a baseball design on it, as I played baseball my whole life and It was better aesthetically with a design under the words. It is roughly square in shape, 12 in x 12 in, with circular cutouts 1.5 in in radius on the corners. The wood is 1/2 in thick. The designs were made using the stenciling machine, which allowed them to be more detailed and led to the letters and design looking better.

Technical Background

The plaque was supposed to use the X-carve and have the designs that were stenciled on be inlays instead. However, the machine was broken, and that led to me stenciling instead. The X-carve makes designs out of plain boards of wood. It carves off layers of the wood, slowly making a design according to however deep one decides. In order to get the X-carve to make your design, you must make a design on Easel, a website that allows you to make designs and send them straight to the X-carve. You must specify how big the machine is, as well as the bit that is being used, and then the software makes the route that the X-carve will go on, and creates the design that you have specified.

Design Drawings

Fabrication Process

In order to make the plaque, I had to learn how to use the Carvey and X-carve. I was tested in order to make sure that I had adequate knowledge of the machines, working in the Easel platform. However, since the X-carve was broke, I was not able to use that for my project. Instead, I cut the wood design with an electric saw, after I had drawn on the design to make sure that the cuts were correct. From there, I used the stencil machine to print out the design that I had made for the X-carve, which I then used to draw the design on the wood after I had cut the outline. I used two different paint stains, in order to make the design stand out. I did multiple coats of both, and then I clear coated over the stain as well to give it a glossy finish. After I was done coating and staining, I used sandpaper on the side because I preferred to have that appear natural instead of being covered with stain.

Students

Project Description

Technical Background

Design Drawings

Fabrication Process

Final Result