Where's the Bathroom?

In our building it can be difficult for visitors to find a toilet. I decided to make some signs to help with this. The CNC machine I have is a dream for making signs, and I've made others in the past

I designed these shapes using Easel, which is a program from Inventables that is used to run their CNC machines. There's a plug in called "Offsetter" that made the outlines for me. 

Process (in brief)

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First I cut the shapes out using the CNC machine. I suppose it's possible to do this with a jigsaw, but it would not be as accurate.

The shapes needed a little sanding

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Next I cut a slot along the edge of the figures by setting my table saw fence to about 1/2 the width of the plywood. 

This cut gets made by passing the material across the blade head first and then again foot first. That way the cut ends up perfectly centered on the material.

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I cut an a steel angle bar to length and drilled holes into it.

The slot in the plywood that it just fits the angle bar with a tiny bit of wiggle room. I used wood glue and CA glue to fix the two pieces together.

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The Illuminated Signs

These signs were a big learning experience for me in using the CNC machine that we've got in the shop. From a teacher stand point, this is a cool way to get students using Adobe Illustrator, electronics, and CNC manufacturing. 

In the future I may do a write up on how these are made, but for now I will say that this project would need some changes in order to work as a school project. If a whole class was making these, it would be better if they didn't need the CNC machine for the whole project and could construct parts of it with more traditional methods.