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Need Help Tracing cans for trimcap faces
- Thread starter 612 SIGNS
- Start date
signbrad
New Member
I turn the letter can upside down on pattern paper, or paper-covered acrylic, and trace the contour of the letter can with pencil. Cut the acrylic with a saber saw, or jig saw, by hand, and then add trim cap.This assumes, of course, that I have the letter in the shop.
Tracing a letter on location can be done with paper and a stick of graphite. When taping up the paper, be careful to not distort the letter shapes by bending the returns as you make the rubbing.
After tracing on paper, I then use a marker to add a line to the outside of the pencil line, effectively adding clos to an eighth of an inch or so. Generally, a fine point Sharpie that has worn down to a rounded point works well. I then cut the outside of the marker line. This allows a little wiggle room.
The main danger is cutting the plastic face too small. Cutting it oversize a bit is usually not a problem.
Obviously, if you have enough of the broken face left, you can use it as a pattern.
A couple of other points:
For an exceptionally clean cut, use a hollow ground saber saw blade, 20 teeth per inch. The blade will heat up because it's so fine, so I go slow.
Also, I always use high grade cast acrylic for channel letter faces. It is engineered to be machined and will not melt back together behind a hot blade like the cheaper plastic grades do. In Plexiglas, this would be Plexiglas G, as opposed to, say, Plexiglas MC. Plexiglas G is cell-cast and is, of course, more expensive.
Brad in Kansas City
Tracing a letter on location can be done with paper and a stick of graphite. When taping up the paper, be careful to not distort the letter shapes by bending the returns as you make the rubbing.
After tracing on paper, I then use a marker to add a line to the outside of the pencil line, effectively adding clos to an eighth of an inch or so. Generally, a fine point Sharpie that has worn down to a rounded point works well. I then cut the outside of the marker line. This allows a little wiggle room.
The main danger is cutting the plastic face too small. Cutting it oversize a bit is usually not a problem.
Obviously, if you have enough of the broken face left, you can use it as a pattern.
A couple of other points:
For an exceptionally clean cut, use a hollow ground saber saw blade, 20 teeth per inch. The blade will heat up because it's so fine, so I go slow.
Also, I always use high grade cast acrylic for channel letter faces. It is engineered to be machined and will not melt back together behind a hot blade like the cheaper plastic grades do. In Plexiglas, this would be Plexiglas G, as opposed to, say, Plexiglas MC. Plexiglas G is cell-cast and is, of course, more expensive.
Brad in Kansas City