• 1 inch wood

• Wood stain, dark brown

• Laser cutter

• V-Carve bit

• 1/4 and 1/6 drill bit 

• Red spray paint

• Glue

• Router Table (bevel on the edges)

• CNC Machine

• Adobe Illustrator

• V-carve Pro

My original idea for this project was to do a "Welcome" sign, but I found that boring so I decided to try and come up with something else. My dad had the idea of making something with music that I liked, so I came up with the idea to make a wooden poster of some albums I liked. I decided to use Playboi Carti's album "Whole Lotta Red" because its one of my favorite albums and the album art is simple yet interesting. The design features shadows of Playboi Carti's face, his necklaces, and the word "Red" that appears to be dripping blood.

The next step was trace Playboi Carti's face and jewelry and the lettering at the top. My plan was to etch Carti's face into the wood and then glue the "Red" at the top so it's hanging over him slightly. I used Illustrator and started by tracing his features and the letters using the curvature tool and the outer box using the pen tool. All of my lines were --pt. 

Next, I cut out my "Red" lettering on the laser cutter. I moved the letters into a different file and made my line thickness 0.001 on Illustrator and then pick out wood for my letters; I chose 1/8 inch wood. I used the Epilog Fusion pro machine. The first time I tried printing it, the machine started engraving instead of cutting. I realized my line line thickness was incorrect, and I made it 0.01 instead of 0.001. I cut it again and it went well!

Now it was time to measure my sign and cut it out on the CNC machine. I chose maple wood because it is light-colored and would make a good contrast, similar to the album color.  I wanted my pice to be 9.75 by 15, but the only wood we had was much longer than that. So we decided to cut the long piece in half, using the jointer, and glue the halves together side-by-side to get the correct size.  After cutting we glued the two halves and clamped them together to dry overnight. The next day, we put my piece through the planer machine to smooth it out.

The next step was to paint my piece with a wood stain. I was inspied by Rider's ski sign and wanted a dark-brown, almost black stain on my wood. However, we didn't have that so I used a dark red stain and let it sit overnight. Then, Mr. Supiro went over my dark red stain with a dark brown which made it look black.

We're in the home stretch! Now it was time to put my artwork into V-Carve and etch Carti's feautures into the wood. I put my art into V-Carve and sent it to the CNC. I used a 1/4 inch bit and a 1/6 inch bit. 

My first "Red" lettering broke, and the second time I printed it it was too small, so I printed it one more time with the proportions 7x2. I spray painted it red, let it dry, and glue it to my piece. Finally, I sprayed the whole thing with a clear coat.

I put my sign up in my room on my shelf, I think it looks geat!r