Can i buy pre made ply christmas trees anywhere?

[storeinet]

make a template out of vinyl just peel and stick to you ply and jigsaw.

Dan

[Peter Normington]

Just use your jigsaw on fomex, Cut the christmas tree in vinyl first, apply to fomex cut around the edge ,job done
Peter

[Timmy Mallet]

Or you could plot a template on a cheep roll of wall paper….

Timmy

[Gary Davis]

thanks everyone think i will try the wallpaper!!

[Bill Dewison]

I use thick lining paper to make templates. Even from B&Q you can pick it up for 99p a roll, and it runs through the plotter no problem.

Personally I would’ve made it out of foamboard, applied a bit of green vinyl, left the app tape on and cut round it. Then applied decorations to the tree in vinyl.

Cheers, Dewi

[Gary Davis]

thanks Dewi, do you cut the foamboard with a jigsaw? i was concerned about it chipping, what blade do you use?

Doing the artwork for it now, its advertising christmas tree’s for sale
Having trouble getting ‘christmas trees’ written across it very big its such and awkward shape!! needs to be legible from the road side, but i think XMAS trees sounds a bit naff although could be bigger on the sign!

[Bill Dewison]

I use Bosch U101D HCS blades… in plain english that would be a medium tooth blade designed to cut PVC. I pay around £4 for them at my local hardware store. I use it daily to cut out foamboard into shapes, leaving around 2mm around the edge of the vinyl, then sanding the remainder off with a mini detail sander (again, a couple of quid for the sanding pads). For tricky corners or the insides of letters, I use a medium grade sandpaper, then non-clogging fine sandpaper.

You need to be very careful when jigsaw that you don’t lift up the app tape with the blade of the jigsaw. This is easy as you just plan out little routes for the blade, and make sure there is a minimum of a 50mm overlap of app tape onto foamboard. Means more waste, but I’ve learnt from experience that its better to have 50mm all around the outer edge than to miscut or scratch the vinyl.

If you do catch the vinyl, its not the end of the day. As long as you’re using a reasonable vinyl, peel it up gently and heat it with your heatgun. then carefully stretch it over the cut edge of the foamboard. Then spin the foamboard, and use a stanley blade to trim off the excess.

Another trick is if you have a long straight edge, you can use a mini hand plane to trim the foamboard back to the vinyl. This saves oodles of time and you get a nice clean edge.

Cheers, Dewi

[Jill Marie Welsh]

Hi.
A Christmas tree has to be one of the easiest things in the world to draw.
Even for the artistically challenged. For as much time as you’ve spent worrying about this,
you could have already drawn it out on plywood and jigsawed the son of a gun.

Sand the edges, prime it with exterior primer,
slap on a coat or two of oil-based paint, leave it dry,
then stick vynull on it. If your lettering isn’t HUGE, you can get away with
“Christmas Trees” in 2 lines, hopefully NOT all-caps Old English tho.
I myself have no objection to the Xmas, if it’s more readable, go for it.
Altho I live in a Redneck area. Using the whole word is nicer tho.

I think a lot of ornaments and stuff would take away from the lettering.
Unless they were understated,
maybe a little darker than the background of the sign and not really detailed.

You can charge more for this, because it is real custom, and it will also last
for many many seasons as opposed to a plastic which might get brittle
and chip or fade. I suggested the oil-based paint because I have the devil of a time
getting vynull to stick to latex backgrounds, especially when it’s cold.

Love…..Jill

[Gary Davis]

thanks for all the info Dewi!

jill think you misunderstood my ramble! :lol1: ive done the christmas tree it was the wording i was having trouble making bold enough with all those letters!
anyway thanks for the tips on wood prep, its all sorted now!

[Jill Marie Welsh]

oops….hey I just woke up and have not had coffee yet.
What you could do with the lettering would be to stagger it in 2 lines.
I’ll try to demonstrate….

Christmas
Trees

(This won’t let me nudge “Trees” over)
You could use the Old English C & T and just Times Roman for the rest,
if you get my meaning. Altho I would go for a more “Victorian” font.
Love….Jill

[Gary Davis]

thanks jill, that would give it a bit more impact with the larger letters at beginning (theres a posh word for it i think but cant remember it!) ! Will give it a go.

[Bill Dewison]

Cheers, Dewi

[Gary Davis]

dewi that looks much better than what ive got here!!

[Bill Dewison]

Have you got Corel Draw? If so, PM me your email and I’ll email the file across 😀

You could even try adding some of Stevo’s effects to it, like the highlights and stuff, it’ll look fabby 😉

Cheers, Dewi

[Gary Davis]

yes i have got corel, would be great if you could send it across but i cant PM and i prefer not to directly post my email add on forums cos of spam. i can get PM’s though i think so could you pm me your email and ill send one back?

what are stevos effects? i only have vinyl cutter not the ability to digitally print unfortunately!

[Bill Dewison]

The effects Stevo did in his demo are for cut vinyl, simple techniques but very effective. I’ve just noticed you haven’t got the Gold membership, which is what you need to see the demo 🙁

PM sent though 😀

Cheers, Dewi

[Robert Lambie]

I do not know much about this trees location but…
Cheap one here…

Cut a sheet of correx in half, from an 8×4
Run one piece with the flutes running horizontal & using the second sheet run it with flutes running vertical.
Take both and glue them together with something like evo-stick or better if you know of any.

Before cutting your vinyl tree, select only the outline of the tree & apply an outline about 4mm.

Cut it all and weed, but be careful not to weed away the outline. Even though it’s the same colour as initial outline.

Apply it to the correx & do not strip application tape.

Using a jigsaw, cut around the image.

Once complete, strip app tape carefully.

Now strip away that 4mm outline of vinyl.

You will find the 4mm of vinyl has debris under it from jig sawing. But once you strip it away you will be left with a very neat original outline.

This is just a cheap way of creating your sign without the problem of the corex popping in on itself depending on the way the flutes run.
You could also cut half way through a spare piece of correx, forming an L bend. Tape this onto the rear of the tree and you will also have a stand for a free standing tree.

Hope this helps some… 😀

[Bill Dewison]

So thats how you get your Christmas tree every year :lol1: I’m imagining lots of little christmas trees dotted around the Lambie lounge, tiny little bacardi breezers hanging from each one for decoration 😀

Cheers, Dewi

[Robert Lambie]

quote Dewi:

So thats how you get your Christmas tree every year :lol1: I’m imagining lots of little christmas trees dotted around the Lambie lounge, tiny little bacardi breezers hanging from each one for decoration 😀

Cheers, Dewi

:lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

nah mate.. im on the hard stuff tonight, straight babycham

.

[Bill Dewison]

It’ll go nicely with the latest issue of What! Car I’m getting you for Christmas mate 😉

Hell, I have 55 minutes to go before I become a fully fledged member of the 1 year club! 😀 I don’t really remember it, but I can guarentee when I made my frst post a year ago, I didn’t expect I’d be nattering about BabyCham!!! :lol1: :lol1:

Cheers, Dewi

[Carrie Brown]

quote Robert Lambie:

nah mate.. im on the hard stuff tonight, straight babycham

With an umbrella and a straw I bet 😉 😛

Dewi, Congrats on your one year membership :cheer: …. any excuse for a celebration eh 😉 :lol1:

Carrie 😀

[Nicola McIntosh]

congrats from me too dewi!! 😛 😛 😛

cannot believe it’s a year gone, we would be lost without your fab posts dewi!! 😉

Nik