Anyone work with outdoor signage materials

dntsdad

dntsdad

Central California
Joined
May 19, 2020
Member Number
47
Messages
1,269
Loc
Central California
Going to use my new CNC to make some outdoor signs and not sure on what is the best, economical material to use. Looking at something that is composite rather than real wood if I can make it work economically.

Have researched medex, extira, azek, and sintra and get mixed reviews on all of them.

Want something that can be cut and machined with normal woodworking blades and bits, is paintable and of course stable in the weather.

longshot probably but if anyone has experiences with anything that would be great. I have never used this type of stuff.
 
My sign guy used HDU board on one I had made. It has held up well for 3 years now.
 
Depending on the size and application the local sign guy uses Azec and real wood. MDF for flat signs that are painted over.
 
We don't do exterior stuff but medex and extira are probably fine. It's just MDF with exterior glue. It won't be terrible on your tooling. Sintra turns to powder at the CNC and is light as hell. Might want to use an O-flute bit. We haven't used azek.

We have cut aluminum laminate on our CNC with solid carbide bits but our CNC is skookum as frig.

If you want to spend money, use Trespa or some similar solid phenolic. It is just really thick plastic laminate.
 
dntsdad said:
Going to use my new CNC to make some outdoor signs and not sure on what is the best, economical material to use. Looking at something that is composite rather than real wood if I can make it work economically.

Have researched medex, extira, azek, and sintra and get mixed reviews on all of them.

Want something that can be cut and machined with normal woodworking blades and bits, is paintable and of course stable in the weather.

longshot probably but if anyone has experiences with anything that would be great. I have never used this type of stuff.
Click to expand...


Specs on the machine? There's really no such thing as normal woodworking bits in a cnc router.....you're usually dealing with 1 or 2 flute endmills for woods and plastics. You reason you can't do light aluminum too unless the machine is really light.
 
bgaidan said:
Specs on the machine? There's really no such thing as normal woodworking bits in a cnc router.....you're usually dealing with 1 or 2 flute endmills for woods and plastics. You reason you can't do light aluminum too unless the machine is really light.
Click to expand...

Shapeoko xxl running a Makita router.
 
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