Breast Cancer Ribbon Sign
Hot Wire Foam Factory
Our graphics and marketing guy, Shane, made this light-up breast cancer awareness ribbon sign out of EPS foam, pink acrylic sheets, and pink LEDs.
“I made this sign for my mother for her 60th birthday. She’s a breast cancer survivor and is nearly 10 years breast cancer free as of making this gallery page. Like all my projects, I started out designing it in Adobe Illustrator.”
“I then exported the file to a PDF and had Joseph in the CNC shop help me cut out the foam pieces on one of our foam cutting CNCs. With a steady hand or the ability cut print/cut out some templates, this can also be done fairly easily with one of our Scroll Tables. Cutting out wood templates on a laser cutter works best, but paper works well too if you can print on longer sheets.”
“I used Foam Fusion to glue all the pieces together except for the middle part of the ribbon. I used that later to help me set the acrylic piece in the right position. Once the glue dried, I started coating it with Bounce mixed with All Purpose Foam Coat.”
“While the coating was drying, I printed a template for the centerpiece out of paper and cut out the middle of it with a 3-Inch Hot Knife. I then coated it with Bounce and All Purpose Foam Coat.”
“While I was waiting for the acrylic sheet to come in, I started painting everything with some craft acrylic paint. I painted the wings pink, the sides white, and the inner space where the LEDs go with a base coat of black (this prevents the light from bleeding through the sides) and a finishing coat of white. Once the paint on the inside dried, I attached the LED strip with a little bit of StyroGoo.”
“Brandon in the CNC shop helped me cut the acrylic piece out on our laser cutter, which fit perfectly in place. I decided to repaint the wings a deeper pink color to match the acrylic sheet a little better.
I used some foam clay to fill in the gap where the wire sticks out. This can also be done with any air drying sculpting clay or even our powdered foam coatings like All Purpose Foam Coat if you mix it a little thicker. I just didn’t want to mix up a batch just to fill this small space.”
“With that, it was all finished. It’s lightweight enough that it can be hung up with just one thumb tack.”
