How to Make a Custom PVC Sign
A local hair salon in my area contacted me to make them a custom sign for their new location they are opening up. Right away I recommended to use PVC as the sign material because of it’s great weather resistance and long lasting properties outdoors. ACM (aluminum composite material) was another option, but ultimately we went with PVC. I knew this project would make a perfect tutorial, so I documented along the way and below you will find the steps I use to make a custom sign for a client as well as a great video I put together.
Step 1: Design
This step can be challenging sometimes if you don’t have much direction what the final product will look like. In this case, they knew close to what they wanted the sign to look like, so that helped me a lot. I did need more information when they first contacted me, so this is exactly what I use to get a better understanding of what the customer wants and get a more accurate quote for the sign:
I can definitely get you an estimate but first I will need some more information:
-What thickness and type of material do you want this sign? (I can do wood, plywood, mdf, acrylic, pvc plastic, or aluminum composite material)
-Is this for indoor or outdoor? (If it is for outdoor, I recommend acrylic, pvc plastic, or aluminum composite material)
-Do you need it finished or unfinished? (Paint, stain, primer, clear coat, etc.)
-Do you know what font you would like the text? (I can do standard fonts or custom fonts(within reason) from www.dafont.com)
-What is your sign to say and what height do you want the text?
-Do you need it shipped?Once I have this information, I should be able to give you a much more accurate quote.
Step 2: Make the Toolpaths
For a sign this large (34 x 90 inches), I decided it would be best to make the back one flat piece and then make the sign design and frame pieces that can be glued on separately. The sign renderings above were done with a simple pocket toolpath in VCarve Pro just to send to the customer. This gives the customer a very close idea what the final design would look like and allows them to approve or not approve the design. Although, I do not use this pocket toolpath in my actual project, I only use this for the visualization. To get the separate colors in the rendering, I just set the material color to solid white and then set the pocket toolpath color to solid black.
To learn more on how to use Vectric software, check out my Vectric Master Training Course.
Step 3: Material Setup
To use the painter’s tape and super glue method, just simply apply blue painter’s tape to the bottom of your material and the surface of your waste board. Then apply super glue to one surface of the tape and optionally, you can use an activator of the other tape surface to cure the glue almost instantly.
The glue and activator I use is called 2P-10 and can be found on Amazon.