Craftsman Club

Pantograph February 23rd, 2002 08:03 PM I need some advice on sign making with the Craftsman pantograph. How wide should my sign be and why can't I get it set up right on a 5 1/2" piece of wood at 50%?

Sign Making April 19th, 2005 03:52 AM I used to do a little for hire sign making (two years).

The width of your sign can either be a fixed value, causing you to scale its largest letters or longest single text line to fit the available width (using the variable proportion feature of a pantograph machine).

Or, you can determine how large your letters are going to be and THEN figure out how wide your wood needs to be.

Please keep in mind you need LARGE letters for anyone to be able to read your sign from a distance.

If they're moving (car) the letters need to be larger and generally lower case letters will help them to quickly "parse" your sign.

All caps are alright for sign work. They're just a little more difficult to read (no ascenders or descenders for quick letter recognition).

If you are using the plastic stencil lettered style pantograph machine (as opposed to the paper pattern letters), be sure to carefully "close" the stencil letter vertical gaps on your sign. Almost no one can read a stencil font anymore. There just isn't enough widespread use of the fonts for most people to learn how to interpret the fonts. And, no one stands in front of a sign trying to read it.

[I hope the ridiculously ornate letter using people are reading this post.]

Most signs use variable width lettering. So, your capitol M or W are going to be the largest width letters and your 1 or l are going to be the smallest width.

You are going to have to do letter spacing (or kerning) manually with the pantograph machine, as you're only tracing one letter at a time and not a proportionally spaced row of them.

If you are using lower case letters, establish a base line first before routing. Otherwise your letters are going to seem to be floating up and down when viewed from a distance.

Oh yes. Like an artist doing a painting, step away from your sign occasionally to get your sign reader's interpretation of your work.

I'm sorry I don't know why the Sears pantograph machine is not working well for you at 5-1/2 inches high at 50%.

Isn't the machine continuously variable?

Try raising or lowering the tracing percentage (lever arms) until the letters do fit.

Finally, Sears sells a special set of "sign making" router bits. They're designed to be decorative (v and half round profiles) and they also take a lot less time to produce a very smart looking sign than using a jointing type straight bits.

Any painting will go much easier using the sign making bit set profiles also.

I hope this has helped.

Feel free to post asking about other sign making issues.

I haven't used this stuff for a long... time.