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Making Sam & Zoe's Coffeehouse Sign
Making a High-relief LogoThe oval
backing was made from one long birdseye maple
board. From left to right, the others are lacewood, wenge,
zebrano, cocobolo, and basswood (as is also the long board across the
back). I later added a small piece of walnut for the coffee
in
the mouth of the cup, and some Peruvian walnut for the bracket and
spacer in the back. The zebrano ended up doubling for the
steam,
and the lacewood was not used.
 The letters have been cut out and the ampersand has had some preliminary shaping.  Close-ups of a couple of the letters after shaping:  Shaping is done with a combination of carving chisels, gouges, riffler rasps, various rotary bits, and sandpaper.  Starting on the
coffee cup: A fully-rounded cup wouldn't fit on the
sign properly, wouldn't tilt forward gracefully, and would make it hard
to
fit steam on the background so that it would rise naturally from the
cup. This cup measures roughly 4 1/2" by 10" across the rim.
It was
cut out on a bandsaw and
is being shaped here with a spokeshave. (You can see "Bob
and
Dave's
Good, Fast and Cheap Bench" hard at work, as usual.)
 Cup and saucer
are basically done, but the carved swirls were not quite what
I was looking for. Inserting a piece
of
creamy, coffee colored walnut does the trick (see below). The
quarter at
bottom right is for size comparison.
  The cup with walnut replacing the carved swirls:  And the back after it's been sliced off for mounting:  After
completing and placing all the various elements according to the
original design, I
decided that this arrangement was simpler and better balanced, especially with this ampersand in zebrano so suggestive of rising vapor. There's nothing left to do but attach the letters and finish the wood. Waterlox was used on all parts of the piece (as can be seen on the gallery page), with one exception: the cocobolo used to make the "Zoe's" letters is too oily to absorb anything else - after five coats of Waterlox, the orange oil from the cocobolo was still coming off on the rag - so finally the wood was just wiped clean and waxed.   The bracket and
spacer on
the back are of Peruvian walnut.
A wire will be run between the eyebolts once the finish work
is
done. The back could have been planed down till the tear-outs
and
wane
were gone, but it would have thinned the panel more than was
desirable. The pieces are short to prevent their being seen
from
the side when hung.
 Copyright 2006 by Embry McKee. All rights reserved. |