Designing a Plaque

On things like this I draw the pattern on Illustration board and cut it out with an Exacto knife. I can sand the illustration board if I need to smooth an edge. I then tranfer the pattern to 1/2 mdf by tracing around it. I then carefully cut this out on the bandsaw and clean up the edge with sanders. Disc and Delta BOSS. I then trace around the template I’ve just created on the real wood. Then I cut the pattern out on the bandsaw leaving about an 1/8 inch all around. I then attach the template with double sided tape to the workpiece and use a pattern routing bit in a router table to clean up the edge and duplicate the template. With all those deer horns this seems like the way to go.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

So, the illustration board is basically a large piece of thicker type of paper? Or is this very thin wood…?

-- John R. - Richmond, Ohio, "With God, all things are possible"

Illustration board is a special art cardboard which is availabe in art stores. It is made for drawing with pencils or pens. You could do the same thing with poster board but it isn’t dense enough to make a good pattern. I always have it in the shop to do patterns for the saddle shop. I can then draw a carving pattern right on my cut out pattern. The advantage is that it will hold up to repeated tracing around on work pieces. For your purposes get the cheapest.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Excellent, I will get my hands on some ASAP. Sounds like it will be needed again and again. Thanks for the help!

-- John R. - Richmond, Ohio, "With God, all things are possible"

If you check out my latest project I posted John, I did a Euro mount a few months ago using oak burl and a polymer epoxy. I run the burl through the planner and got it smooth then poured on the epoxy, then mounted the antlers. Very fast and easy, and cheap. jockmike2

-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com

example of deerhead mount

-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com

Michael, that’s quite the mount! Thanks for sharing it. I think the rack looks much better than a clock!

-- John R. - Richmond, Ohio, "With God, all things are possible"

Hey John R,

Sorry I’m late to the party on this one.

I note that you’re planning to cut your plaques on a bandsaw. If you “draw” or scan your plan into your computer, and presuming that you have access to a printer, you can always just print out a new one. Glue it on with spray glue and cut ‘er out. Works the same with scroll saw type patterns.

Nice thing about this is that you can add any instructions or notes to yourself that you’d care to keep. Router bit # that you’ve used to finish the edge, grain direction that particularly appealed to you, finishes that worked or didn’t, any number of things.

And, if you are a good computer user, you back up your files occasionally to a CD or DVD so that when the inevitable happens, you still have your records. That and a paper backup in your files. 8^)

-- Dean, Missouri