Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion How are die cut signs cut?

I can get a free very large Union Pacific Railroad decal (2.5 ft tall). Its a cool logo.
I was wondering who or what could follow the shield shape and cut out a piece of steel/aluminum to make a new sign?

I dont want it to be cut by hand but done by a laser/water etc. just like the repro signs are.

Any ideas?
Mark

Just curious, but what's wrong with cutting it out by hand? Tracing the decal onto a piece of sheet aluminum, one could easily cut it out on a band saw, and then use a 1-inch belt sander to smooth it up right to the line. I don't see you you'd ever be able to tell the difference.

Now, if it just has to be cut on a laser cutter, you could try to make/find a friend at a smaller fab shop or other business that has the machine, and give them a .dxf or other file.

Wes

Mark , I've done just what Wes is saying several times they come out great.

To answer the title.

Die-cut refers to pieces stamped out with a male and female die, good for lots of pieces, bad for setup costs..

Just like a BIG paper punch!!!!

I was in a stamping shop yesterday, they had a 1400 Ton press, dies were the size of a pickup box!!

They had a laser cutter that could handle 1 inch steel and would insert the steel plate and removed the cut parts automatically.

At the BMW plant in Munich around 10 yrs back I saw a line of 6 1500Ton presses in a row, the sheet went in one end and came out the other finished. All 6 presses without anyone touching the sheet, it would get flipped and spun around between presses.

Wes,
To answer your question I was speaking for myself. Whatever I cut looks pretty bad!
And its a shield shape so it increases the difficulty of cutting it.

Anybody have examples of their "home cut" signs?

Hey Mark, I'll solve your problem here. Just mail the decal to me, and I'll worry about it, then you can sleep good at night.... LOL. I'm with Wes on this one. Just about ant metal shop should be able to do this for you. That would look cool if you put the shield on a couple of stadoffs over the wings with some backlighting. Hey I just got an idea... I'm going out to the shop....

The trick is to rough it out first on a shear or with a cutoff wheel, then start working to the finished edge..

I work for BNSF and no matter what you do to doll them up, the UP never looks good.....just kidding