Making Bandsawn Letters

Okay often I'm at a maker event and young children want me to make name plates for them and I like to freestyle the letters. It's kind of mysterious for the children to watch me just make their letters outta nowhere so I'm gonna show you how I do that. If I'm gonna make the name, George I just quickly block out the name. G-E-O-R-G-E. And each one of these spaces is the letter and I'm gonna connect each letter together so it's one big piece with fonts all interconnected. And I'm gonna freestyle that. And then as you begin to form your letter forms you could use a pencil to draw them out. But since I have a lot of experience I can kind of see where the letter's going and I could see it in my mind. G-E-O-R-G-E. And it's also important to recognize where each letter is gonna be stuck to the letter next to it so that all the letters form one object. There's the E. I tend to cut out what's quickest first. Sometimes I'll begin to nibble knowing that the surface of the letter, the front surface is the most important. I'll lift the letter up so I get an easier nibble. So I'm just worried about the front surface of the letter more than the back, same thing here. And by doing that I get a much easier cut. G-E-O-R-G-E. I misspell everything so I have to constantly keep checking. G-E-O-R. I got a little screwy here with the R next to the G but I was able to make it work. And don't get too uptight about the letters themselves. You're just doing bubble letters just like you would've drawn on your notebook in, in elementary school. You're doing the same thing and it's good practice because you'll find yourself caught up in little dead ends and you're not sure how to get out of them. It's a good thing to learn how to nibble with the band saw. As you nibble you can create a turnaround without having to go too far into no man's land where you don't want to be. I take advantage of the little hole that's around the blade. I let the tiny pieces fall through. And then as you begin to make your letter forms you might want to change the, the weight of each letter and you can cut fully the depth of the whole piece of material or you'll notice I begin to lift the letter up, the whole sign up and just nibble at the front edge because the front edge is the most important. If you are relying on the rake of the blade to grab the entire girth of the material to do a correction you might find yourself over correcting and you'll take out more than you really wanted. That's why I like to lift the sign up and nibble at just the front edge of the letter, because you're not gonna really notice the back if it's incorrect but you'll certainly notice the very front edge if it's incorrect. And just have fun and don't get too uptight. And if you do get yourself caught up in a jam you can just cut the sign in half or cut the letters apart and glue them back together. I always keep a pencil in my hand so I can flick away stuff if I can't blow it away. But what's nice is that when you're done cutting it out you have one nice little piece to hand to whoever's sitting there watching you. Again I learned this from doing band saw demos over the years especially at maker fairs when there's little kids hanging around and they all want their name and it's a lot of fun. It's also a really good band saw practice.