For today’s project, I’m engraving a wooden sign and since I don’t have a CNC machine yet, this one was a bit of a challenge.
Materials and Tools
Wood: Pine wood
Tools: Clamps, Tightbond III wood glue, DeWalt Router, Bosch Straight router bit, pencil, Graphite carbon paper, sign, painters tape
All you really need is a logo you can trace, some graphite carbon paper, and a hand router with the right bits.
I started by building the sign panel using pine boards, gluing everything together with Titebond III wood glue to create a 4-by-6-foot sign. Once the glue dried, I sanded down all the rough spots and any dried glue, finishing with 220-grit sandpaper.
Next, I taped the graphite carbon paper directly onto the wood. This paper lets me transfer the design onto the surface. I then taped the enlarged logo that I had Staples create, over the carbon paper and carefully traced the entire design with a pencil.
This step was very time-consuming, so I worked slowly and used the pencil to keep track of where I had already traced, making sure I didn’t miss any part of the logo. Once finished, the full design was successfully transferred onto the wood.
After that, I grabbed my DeWalt router and installed a Bosch quarter-inch router bit. I started with a shallow depth and slowly worked my way through the traced areas. It was easier than I expected, but it required a lot of focus—one small mistake could ruin the whole thing.
I started with the cursive “Pinehurst, NC” since I knew that would be the most challenging part, then worked my way through the rest of the logo. I used epoxy to fill in the engravings to match the logo!
Let me know what you think in the comments below.