To make this mini I used 100% Canadian Maple veneers, which included one blue-dyed veneer. Using wood glue, I glued the veneers together and put it into a mold. From there I put the mold with the veneers on it into a Roarockit vacuum bag, pumped the air out and left it overnight. The next step was woodworking. With a surform shaving tool I scraped my edges down so they become flush. After that I hit the edges at a 45 degree angle so I could move on to rounding my edges. To round my edges I used a sanding belt and rounded the edges around the entire board. Next I used sandpaper to sand the faces of the board. I started with 80 grit on both sides, to 180, to 220. The final woodworking step was wet sanding. I took a damp paper towel and went over the board in sections to raise any leftover splinters from the veneer and sanded it down with 220 to get a nice smooth surface. Finally I did my graphic. Instead of doing a tape stencil graphic I wanted to try engraving the board. I resized my original design so it would fit nicely with the shape of the board. From there I took a pencil to scribble the back so I could mimic carbon paper and transfer my design without getting the veneer dirty. I used a dremmel tool to engrave my design. To make it pop I went in with a white sharpie paint marker so the quote would be more visible.
I'm trying to communicate that graffiti can sometimes send messages and to also show how constantly sketching letters can branch out to doing other things, such as creating hand done illustrations, sign painting, etc. I'm quite content with the outcome of my board this year. I originally did not want to use any paint or paint marker in this design but to keep it strictly engraved. While engraving the board I noticed the veneer was completely dyed through, making the design quite hard to read. My classmate recommended that I go in it with paint marker so I tried it out and it looked pretty good. Hopefully I get another opportunity to engrave boards, I really enjoyed doing it and would love to continue using this method.
