We are doing a project this weekend with Ken Christie and his family. It is the YOU ARE NOW IN BEDFORD FALLS sign from It's a Wonderful Life.
I worked on a profile for the trim around the sign and come up with four.
Vote on the one you like the best. Click on images to enlarge.
Vote on the one you like the best. Click on images to enlarge.
First I pulled the image from the movie into Sketch up and did a match to try to get the size. Ken estimated that the top of the sign was 6' high so I used that and calculated everything else with Sketch up. Ken found a font that was close but we had to stretch it in Photoshop to make it long enough. He then printed it out and cut out each letter to make a stencil.
The sign ended up 8' wide by 7' high. It is ¾" plywood with western red cedar trim.
The sign ended up 8' wide by 7' high. It is ¾" plywood with western red cedar trim.
Laying out the stencil and painting the sign was a big job.
We had to glue up a block for the curved moldings and rough cut them on the band saw.
We made a template of the curve the width of the molding and used a flush cut bit on the router table to clean it up. Since I was cutting against in some cases I needed to take light passes so I couldn't us the bearing so I made a little jig to hold to work against and moved the fence to adjust it.
The legs are 4x4 pine but they were very warped so by the time I joined and planned them they were just over 3 x3. The post are mortise and tenon into the foot. I added blocks to the ends of the feet so that it would stand better on uneven ground. (And I thought they looked cool.) To fasten it to the ground we drilled hole through the feet at a slight angle and made stakes from 18" galvanized rod to stake it to the ground.
Here is the finished sign on location.
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