Hand Routed Wood Signs
by Peter Joyes

Using a high speed, heavy, and noisy router to make signs is often hard work.
It is easy to make a mistake. It is not like using paper - each piece of wood has its'
own characteristics, Most wood has layers of both hard and soft between the grain, often
making the router wiggle. Some is like soft cheese, others like rock.

 
I recently bought a plotter/cutter to cut out letter shapes from adhesive
colored vinyl. I like the speed and accuracy of this process, but it produces very
exact and commercially acceptable work. There's not much room for personal
expression in a vinyl sign. To see some examples click here
link to new vinyl signs page

  Click here to link to pages about sign ideas for
The Haven property on Gabriola Island

 
This "Fellowship Hall" sign is made from a piece of an old pew seat from the
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Portland, Oregon.
. On the right is what it looked like before being stained and varnished.
I like the way the letters stand out using the natural lighter interior color on this rare piece of old growth wood.
Close up, you can still see the old square iron nail holes in the letter a.

This page features some of my favorite wooden routed signs..

 

  

The signs are made with a hand held high speed router.  Several signs
I have made for the buildings at The Seabeck Conference Center in Seabeck, WA

 

 

 

 

For many years, traveling all over the West Coast I lived in a converted LA Transit bus painted blue.
I called it "E Bluebus Unum."  Custom cabinets were made to fit the rounded ceiling
and to hold my large inventory of pictures, bags, and supplies for the shows..
Arriving a couple days early for a Christmas show in San Francisco,
 I used the time to carve these words into some oak drawer fronts

 

Here is one pleased customer!
Link to new Vinyl Signs

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