# Routing Letters



## bdusten (Mar 22, 2013)

I just built a cage for toy stuffed animals for my step daughter. I wanted to rout her name on the top board I was wondering was there any cheap easy way to do this? Her name is Daisy. I did the y and i free hand and it turned out pretty good but the D and S I had a lot of trouble with. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

bdusten said:


> I just built a cage for toy stuffed animals for my step daughter. I wanted to rout her name on the top board I was wondering was there any cheap easy way to do this? Her name is Daisy. I did the y and i free hand and it turned out pretty good but the D and S I had a lot of trouble with. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


Here in pdf format is a photo-shoot showing how I routed this sign freehand.


----------



## jason99 (Feb 25, 2013)

Nice work Harry


----------



## sheddweller (Mar 25, 2013)

hi Harry,
I havent been using Router for that long (6months) and have found it best to sit at my bench so that my forearms are resting on the edge of the bench and tend to move only my hands (mainly) Hope this is of some help,
Richard


----------



## bdusten (Mar 22, 2013)

Thanks I'm going to give it a try. Beautiful sign by the way!


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

Richard, it's important that the operator is comfortable whilst using a router and so long as you are in perfect control of the router, then there is nothing wrong with your method, which may of course change as you gain confidence and experience. Perhaps you should study and attempt to make the projects in my series "Routing for beginners" which can be found after clicking on "Guide bushes and templates" you'll find them as stickies at the top of the column.


----------



## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

You'll notice that Harry's sign is on a standalone piece of wood. Nice job Harry. 
I would practice on some scrap, or low value, wood, then do her name on a separate piece of wood and attach it. That way if you screw up, you can just start over on another piece of wood - not screw up an already finished project.

Pictures?


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

Theo, like me, Richard will be surprised at how easy freehand routing is, especially so using the router skis which give the operator TOTAL control of the router.


----------



## bdusten (Mar 22, 2013)

*Stuffed Animal Jail*

I tried on a scrap piece of wood to write her name and it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Here is a picture of it completed I wanted to put her name at the top.


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

How about a photo so we can resolve the problem Dusten.


----------



## IC31 (Nov 16, 2012)

Harry - thanks for that tutorial as I was just about to attempt a couple raised letter signs for our camper and using my new little Ridgid router and really didn't understand how I could maintain proper depth of cut and follow lines. Now I need to whip up a sled design

Oh and carbon paper seems to have about gone the way of the Carrier pigeon in the US - I ended up ordering on line for way too much money for what I got. There is woodworking transfer paper for even more dollars:sad:


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

I must confess that the folder of carbon paper that I have is left over from when I sold my first business in 1974! I read on a post recently that there is a spray for this sort of thing.


----------



## sheddweller (Mar 25, 2013)

I thought I may be able to help !! ha ha Like the song from way back in the sixtys goes.
"You no more than I do" !!!!!
Cheers for advice. Richard


----------



## sheddweller (Mar 25, 2013)

Hi Dusten.
Have benn trying to post you some advice, but I,m pretty new to computors My posts to you have gone to harrysin !!! He knows more than I,ll ever know !
Cheers Richard


----------



## doug12 (Feb 8, 2013)

Thru the years I have helped the boy scouts, cub scouts and other groups learn how to carve free hand signs. What has worked well for me as a teaching tool is to put practice boards together for the groups to practice on. The practice boards are just softwood such as cedar and pine with the letters A O S and E on them evenly spaced. Anyone who masters these letters on a couple of practice boards (sometimes more) has no problem carving the remainder of the alphabet! Hope this helps


----------



## JudgeMike (Feb 27, 2012)

harrysin said:


> Here in pdf format is a photo-shoot showing how I routed this sign freehand.


Excellent tutorial Harry. Thanks for taking the time.


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

JudgeMike said:


> Excellent tutorial Harry. Thanks for taking the time.


No probs. Mike, here is another one.


----------



## JudgeMike (Feb 27, 2012)

harrysin said:


> No probs. Mike, here is another one.



Excellent. Learning so many new things on this forum. The first bit to outline the letters. I know you said it was a 1/8". Could you please tell me a little more. Is it carbide? Spiral? Length? Brand name? Sorry to quiz you but want to get the right one. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge Harry.

Mike


----------



## Stan Richardson (May 23, 2013)

Dusten,

Some people freehand rout signs in slightly different ways, but in the end its very close to Harry's idea. I use carbon paper when I print out fonts on the internet and some times I have 2 types of letter fonts that I spray on with MARSH ink. If that photo you showed is where the name is going at the top, that looks like a tight spot. can you remove the very top piece so the router will clear it?? take your time when carving freehand if your just starting to learn a good way to learn is set your depth of your router to just outline the words, then comeback with a second deeper pass and maybe a third if needed. what ever you carve even if you think it doesn't look good you made it with your very two hands, it will be something your daughter will cherish forever even when your long gone. my oldest daughter is 19 and still has the toy box I made for her when she was 3, It was the first thing I ever free handed or built with wood for that matter and it opened a lot of doors for me. Good luck my friend there are some really nice folks in here that are willing to help.
Stan


----------



## freudman (Jan 2, 2012)

*Thanks for the pdf*



harrysin said:


> Here in pdf format is a photo-shoot showing how I routed this sign freehand.


Thank you for providing the pdf. Extremely useful and very clearly demonstrated, it's a big help to me starting out.


----------



## harrysin (Jan 15, 2007)

JudgeMike said:


> Excellent. Learning so many new things on this forum. The first bit to outline the letters. I know you said it was a 1/8". Could you please tell me a little more. Is it carbide? Spiral? Length? Brand name? Sorry to quiz you but want to get the right one. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge Harry.
> 
> Mike


I'm sorry that I missed this post. The size and type of bit is not at all critical but around the 1/8" is nice. I have two 1/8" straight bits, one is solid Carbide the other a two flute Carbide tipped one.


----------



## berry (Oct 17, 2005)

Great info Harry, thanks for all your contributions to this forum. I going to try making a set of those 'skies' as soon as I finish the patio bench I'm working on. Any info about making those you want to pass on?


----------

