Cutting the outlines now.
1/4" MDF. These letters are going to be heavy
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Hmmm maybe 50 lbs? I dunno. You could look up the model number I guess? I’m in northern Delaware (more precise than you might think, northern DE fits in a circle 12 24 miles across) so it’s probably not cost effective to ship. Again, I dunno.
It was originally mounted on a workbench, which I haven’t got, so it’s a 4"x24" jointer bed/cutter and a separate universal motor, some old belts and new blades. Free to a good home! Definitely needs some lube and polishing but the bed’s a nice hunk of steel. I wouldn’t mind keeping the motor, actually, but you can have both bits if you want 'em.
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I like those old Craftsman tools, they’re very solid and stylish in a way that I enjoy. Sadly, the UPS estimate is around $125.00, which is more than I can devote to it right now. Thanks for thinking of me though!
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Surely a 12-mile radius, no?
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@MrShiv, you are correct! Measured from the cupola of the New Castle courthouse. My mistake.
@Faffenreffer, I’ll ping you if I still have it the next time I run up to the Boston area.
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Letters all done, just touching up the paint.
I bought the faux neon strips from two different eBay vendors and annoyingly, they have noticeably different brightness:
… but maybe no one will notice
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Does it spell “FORREST”?
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It’ll be a marquee sign for the Forrest Theater, a temporary film venue at this festival that I’ve worked for the past 15 years or so. One of my festival jobs is sign-making. (I also print the tickets and do a lot of construction and art installation.)
The theater is named after Forrest Rose, a local musician, newspaper columnist and a multi-talented mainstay of our town’s cultural landscape for three decades, who tragically died in 2005. Forrest was also my next-door neighbor, my friend, and a deeply decent person.
The sign itself is intended to echo the landmark neon sign of the Tiger Hotel. (The Forrest theater is located in the historic hotel’s ballroom.)
I used images of the hotel’s neon sign to create outlines and traces of my letters. The T, E, and R were easy, because they also occur in TIGER. The F was just like the E with one less arm. I adapted the O from the G of TIGER. The S was the hardest to design.
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Just curious, have you ever gotten into hand-painted signs? I’m a portrait painter, but find any kind of script (hand-lettering, calligraphy, etc) to be the most frustrating task to work on.
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Not really. Most of the signs I’ve made have been painted, but not “freehand” if you will. I have no artistic talent. I’m much more comfortable with graphic design. For example, I designed and laid out this quote painted on a theater wall, but a professional artist did the lettering:
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99% done. Just need to even up the top edges, dab some paint on the fronts of the bases, and make a top rail to hold the upper edges aligned. Last photo for a while, as I need to move on to other projects…
Bonus: a rare glimpse of “Copper Star”, a piece I made a few years ago but that’s been in deep storage until recently:
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My grandson was born two months premature and his birth got me to crocheting teeny little baby beanies for him. After he came home I just didnt stop. So I make teeny baby beanies for NICU babies, from a small size 2lb to a big size 9lb (because not all NICU babies are preemies). I also make Bereavement Beanies for the angel babies. The parents can place them on their babies to stay with them or for the parents to take home after the baby has had it own. We were blessed, my grandson did well & despite his small size he came home at two weeks and 4lbs! He is now a bouncing, thriving, blonde hair blue eyes & tiny blue glasses 3.5 year old!
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Have a little microtour of the non-profit co-op craft store where I sell my bowls these days:
It’s in the old Bank of Tasmania building. Back in the goldrush days, it was cleaned out by bushrangers twice.
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Only twice? Looks like a soft target
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Making another Huon Pine bowl.
Trim the blank:
Mounted and ready to go:
Mounting socket carved, ready to flip:
All done, time for sanding:
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So do you have to get a license to obtain this wood? The Wikipedia article mentioned conservation efforts involving restrictions on collecting dead wood from these trees.
Also, post 2000! 
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