I will be using this 1/4”, 60 degree V grove bit.

I purchased mine here:

V groove bit

Here I use Corel Draw to place my logo on a rectangle the size of my fence board.

This will allow me to size the logo.

Note that this is a logo I designed a little while ago. It is vector based so it exports very well for other applications.

I select the rectangle and logo and export them as an EPS file.

Note that I use an EPS format to go from CoreDraw and Vcarve. This method gives me a very accurate transfer to Vcarve without any issues.

The eps file is loaded into Vcarve and the objects are rotated to fit my machine.

In this case it will be my KRMx02 CNC.

You can read more about my KRMx02 here:

Building the KRMx02 CNC

Bread Outline

I set the V bit to cut on the bread component with no offset.

Bullet Outlines

I cut the bullet outline using an inside offset.

Text Outlines

As with the bread outline, the v bit cuts on the each line in the text.

Vcarve has the ability to display the results of the cut. Here I set the fill color with black.

Once I am happy with my tool paths, I save the gcode file for Mach3.

The gcode is loaded into Mach3.

My sign board is clamped on the machine and the job is started.

I am running this machine pretty slow and could probably double the speed, but I was getting such great cuts, I decided to leave the feed rate set to 25Ipm.

Once the milling is complete, I paint the engraving with some acrylic black paint.

The key here is to cover the cut grooves with paint.

Once painted, I let it dry for a couple hours.

Once the paint is dry, I sand the board with 80 grit sand paper.

The board is sanded until the black paint on the board is removed.

The finished product.

I added eye bolts to the sign and hung it on my deck.

It will be interesting to see how this weathers.

My Shooting Deck.

Video of the above process.