Mailbox Decoration for New Years

My husband got the bug to make a mailbox decoration for New Year’s. He found this cute Calvin & Hobbes design on the net. We had to modify the one he found, moving the wording from the gray square on the left of this picture down to across the bottom, larger, and with a different font. We also needed to add an elbow to Hobbes.

My husband translated the picture to the code needed by the computer attached to our CNC setup (computer guided plasma torch) so that we could cut the design out of sheet metal. We made a mounting  pipe and welded it to the cut out design. We then painted everything with gray primer paint to keep the metal from rusting.

I then marked both sides of the piece with the design. For some unknown reason, it was really difficult to get the design to match up with the transparency on the overhead projector on the back side. We ended up marking Hobbes’ head, then moved the transparency and lined things up so that I could do Calvin’s head, then moved it again for the words. I then had to free hand all the things that came between the 3 moves to complete the design.

I painted the first coat on the back yesterday. It went pretty well, considering all the guessing I had to do to get the design to come together. I’ll try to finish the back today, except for the accents.

We trying to have it ready to put up on the mailbox right after Christmas.

I’ll post pics when it’s up.

Have a great day!