Making a gamer tag wall sign for ownage station (COMPLETED!)

[moonbogg]

I don't know where to post this but right here. Its a sign for my PC gamer tag. I will make a sign with my gamer tag to hang over my ownage station. So far I have this design.

Water jet aluminum, 31" long and 4 1/4" tall. I will have a USB powered RGB LED strip behind it on the bottom to add light effects from behind. I'll polish the aluminum and leave it.

The other idea I had was to have a solid sheet and water jet the letters out of it so the light can shine through, but I'm not sure about how that would look. What do you think of the current iteration? I don't want to go too crazy with the design and have it look tacky.

Help me out here. Make a sketch of something you think would look badass and share it here.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Nice work Husky!

 

[WiseUp216]

http://i.imgur.com/JVTUk1Y.png

I even went ultrawide for you

 

[Evilviking]

Holy crap. That's awesome. Can you make one for me too!? My gamer tag is "Defense" red and black in 4k world be awesome for my desktop background!

 

[moonbogg]

Holy crap! What the hell dude? That's awesome as all hell. I knew there had to be a better way. Thanks a lot for this, really. You just steered me down a way more awesome path. My sign is going to kick ass now. Maybe I'll add the chamfers on the CNC mill, or I might leave the edges sharp. I'd like the chamfers, but the CNC guy might be too busy. It will look good even without them, but I am going down a path like this you got here. Thanks, seriously. This is perfect.
Also, is there a font you used, or did you just draw the letters? I can draw them like that, but if there is a font I could save a little time.

EDIT: I'll draw them. You've done more than enough to help already.

 

[Evilviking]

You really should motivate a guy. Where's my beer money?


Beer money!? Done! Beers ob me in socal or PayPal funds can be sent ;P

Haha

 

[zinfamous]

dang, Husky. Can you make me one that says ASSFace?

 

[moonbogg]

Thank you. I am glad you like it



You really should motivate a guy. Where's my beer money?



You are welcome. Nice to hear you like it.I was in a mode to help someone, so why not. For CNC you need to prepare document the right way. Jpg,png won't be good.

This is custom made, but i didn't have enough time to make few more adjustments. The first two Os aren't conected with aim object so they are hanging in the air. It is good for a wall or something like that, but I assumed according to your design you wanna all letters to be conected on some way.

I'll connect the letters and prepare for waterjet. I'll make sure that no letters are cut lose, lol. That would be pretty funny though. I might have the plate Blanchard ground before waterjet to give a nice uniform machined look. I am thinking of making a wooden backboard for it and paint it with a similar style to your background. I think it would look SICK with a blue light shining between them. I'll order the material and update the thread with the progress.

 

[moonbogg]

It will be glorious.

 

[Elixer]

You can connect letters Os like that:
It looks quite nice.

Indeed it does, what did you using to make that?

 

[moonbogg]

My attempt at a faithful reproduction. This file is water jet ready. The material came in and is waiting to be flycut to minimum clean on the show face. The water jet guy is waiting for the material and new file. This badboy is happening. This is going down!

 

[moonbogg]

Picking it up from water jet after work today! I'm pumped. I did a little more fine tuning. Its going to be fabulous. They flycut the face of it so it has a rugged textured look to it. I will clean and polish it after. The machine lines should show up nice as a rough texture to give it some character.
I'm thinking about how to mount and illuminate it. I could simply hang it on the wall like a picture, which would be the easy way out. It would still look good, and possibly look best that way. Other ideas include a back board from which it would protrude. For lighting I will likely take an easy way out and just buy a bias lighting LED strip and mount it to the desk under the sign so the light simply shines up the wall to illuminate it as well as the general monitor area. It should look pretty good and its an easy way to light it up. Anything else would involve quite a lot of work and time and possibly more money.
I'll post a pic of it when I get home. This thing is substantial in size. Just under 36" long and letters nearly 4" tall. I used 3/8" thick aluminum instead of 1/4" for a more substantial, beefy look. I wanted to go with 1" but it was expensive.

Also, if anyone likes the sign after they see it finished, and you want one, I will make one for you at cost. I won't charge anything for my time, but it will cost you some money for material and waterjet. Those are really the only costs involved and you can just polish it or add a grain texture to it with sand paper and a wooden block. Or I can just provide you with the water jet file and you can buy the material yourself and find your own water jet service.
There is one catch. If I go through the work to create the file for you, you had better have the balls to actually make the thing.

See here, each letter has to be designed, constrained and fully dimensioned.

 

[moonbogg]

I thought CNC guy will use ur eps and put it in his software so you don't need to do this -.-

This is how the geometry is created. The resulting solid model is converted to a 2D format and sent to the machine. Anyway, here it is! I love it!!! Thanks Husky! This is matt/machined finish. I am strongly considering sanding smooth and polishing it to a shine. Not sure yet. I love it!!!
Also, I will add a bias lighting strip behind the monitor to send a glow up the wall and catch the sign. SICK!

 

[zinfamous]

Awesome!

BTW, I am disappointed that those speaker cables are showing. Grow some balls and run those through the wall or get a rail hider mounted behind the display!

 

[WelshBloke]

That looks fecking awesome!

 

[MongGrel]

Looks pretty slick

I used to program and make some things just out of scrap on the wire EDMs now and then when I had a rare chance if a machine was open on the weekends. With the owners blessing, of course.

 

[WelshBloke]

Actually can you move your monitor a couple of inches to the right!

 

[moonbogg]

Thanks guys! I may extend my man sack and do something about the wires. The reason the sign is off center from the speakers and monitor is because those things and the desk are going to move to the right, so I centered the sign on the wall and the other things will be moved to be centered with the sign.
I was looking at the left over material, and its basically a rectangular plate with letters cut out. It gave me an idea for a fancier sign in the future. It can be a sort of light box with the design cut out and have an LED in it so the light shines through the letters like a neon looking sign. Would be really nice so maybe some time I'll do something like that. Or maybe I'll do one with a battlefield logo or something.

@Husky, the material was $50.00 and I got the water jetting done for free. A lot of the cost would have been creating the file but I did that myself, and without your idea my sign would have been lame and noobish. To have something like this water jet would likely cost around a $50 charge as long as the water jet file is provided. If they have to make the file they will probably charge a couple hundred extra or something like that, give or take. Not sure exactly what they might charge to mess around to draw the letters, but they will charge something for sure. I got away with $50 total. Not bad at all. Oh, plus $20 for the LED light strip I have coming.

Also, having the face machined was also free, but not necessary. It would look just as good if I had sanded it or even left it alone. So that won't be a factor for any future stuff.

Who wants to see a pic of me wearing this as a neck chain? Its won't be a necklace, because I'm a big bad man, and big bad men wear neckCHAINS.

 

[Dannar26]

:roceeds to register the name "moonbogg" in every online gaming platform::

Mu fu fu fu fu fu!

 

[moonbogg]

$50.00 for that gamer tag is very cheap. I know you did a lot of work by urself, but tag looks expensive. Did u put led lights? Did u make any photos with led lights in the dark?

$50 is cheap for what it is. Regarding the lighting, I installed it lazy style. LED strip stuck to the back of my desk. It looks cool at night, but it didn't quite have the effect I was going for. The problem is that the wall is painted a dark gray color and it absorbs the light. I might mess with it more later but for now its done. Looks pretty good with the light, but not exactly what I was going for.
Notice how bright the wall to the right is and how dark the back wall is. The wall on the right is painted a light gray color and reflects the light.

 

[zinfamous]

I want to see the neckchain. and various other chains.

 

[moonbogg]

I have an LED strip kind of like that. I'm burnt out on this project and I consider it done. Its good enough and not worth any further effort, however, I have ideas for some other things. I'm rolling some ideas around about my next project. It won't be another BOGG sign. One is enough, lol. I love myself, but I'm not like one of those dictators who need a sign of themselves on every street corner in the country, or in my case, on every wall in the house.
Check it out, here is my next thought. I'm thinking of making a Battlefield themed light sign. It has to be a timeless battlefield sign with no specific theme for modern, historical or future warfare. This way its timeless and will still be relevant regardless of the direction DICE takes the franchise.
I'm thinking a kind of light box that has water jet artwork cut out, and behind each water jet symbol can be a different colored light to give it a varied and colorful appearance. It will definitely have a big "BF" or maybe the whole word "BATTLEFIELD" somewhere on it, and maybe a silhouette of a soldier kneeling with a rifle and helmet, or maybe holding a flag in the wind.
The box could be constructed with a flat sheet aluminum back and the front sheet would have the water jet cut outs. Sandwiched between the two sheets could be large rubber O-ring material that is a little thicker then the space between the two sheets, and the rubber can be placed around the artwork cut outs between the front and back panel, and sandwiched in place to keep the LED lights isolated to their specific cutouts so that they only shine out of their cutout and not bleed into the other cutouts. This will let the sign be multi colored with high contrasting colors.
There is also the option of multi-layered sheets being used for contrast effect. What I mean is to have the same shape, but larger to form a perimeter and another color shines on that perimeter only. I made a sketch to explain.
Or, what might look even better is to paint those colors and just light them with a regular white LED.