Laser Cut Wooden Interchangeable Open/Closed Door Sign

My wife was in need of a custom door sign to inform visitors / customers that they could enter her sewing workshop and ask questions while she is working on orders, however when she has 121 classes on she needs to be able to attend the students and not get distracted by guests. This simple door sign project allows her to set frequently used messages quickly throughout the day.

Download the project file and open in xTool Studio - It contains 2 versions of the door sign. The first is just the basics without space for the logo. The second has a space to the left of the messages to engrave your logo, as well as holes to hang it. Feel free to customise the messages.

You will need:

Approx 2 sheets of 300x300 plywood, idealy in 2 contrasting colours. I used 3mm Walnut ply for the front layer and 1.5mm basswood ply for the spacer layer, message slides and the back as they are lighter in colour. And some string to hang it up.

If you have the slide extension as I do on the F2, you can make the wide version 270mm x 110mm. If not, make sure to select the entire project and scale the whole thing down so that the largest part (the front) can be cut in one pice on your machine. Feel free to play with the size, but pay close attention to the message slides as they may not fit or your words may not be seen through the windows. Will cover this later.

Select a front, add your custom text, name or logo and cut it out from the 3mm Walnut Ply. 
Cut: 100% Blue laser and 4mm/s.
Engrave:  40% Blue Laser 100mm/s.

 

Next cut a back from the 1.5mm Basswood Ply. No need to make the back any wider than it needs to be so you will notice it only covers the back of the slider holes. Always saving material where I can…

The only difference between these two parts is that one has a hole in it to hang it up.

Cut: 100% Blue laser and 4mm/s. (Maybe get away with 7mm/s on 1.5mm ply)

Now is the fun part, you can customise your own messages. In this example you only need to cut out 1 large and 2 small sliders, then flip and engrave messages on both sides but you can create as many as you need!

Note: Make sure not to centre your text in the message slider, as it is offset intentionally to display correctly once inserted into the window. Use the example in the project file to position your own custom messages.

Top Tip: Always leave 0.2mm space between parts that you want to move / fit together. I have allowed for this in the project file, but if you have scaled this design down, you may want to adjust the sliders by -0.1mm

The last step is to glue the layers together with wood glue or superglue, making sure not to get squeeze out into the area that the message sliders will move in or they might not fit. I used laundry pegs to hold it together until the glue dried.

Once dry, you can add a layer of finish or food safe chopping board oil to make the walnut ply pop. I was tempted to add some white paint to the engraved logo area, but will save that for another project.

Thanks for checking out this make, let me know if know if you make one and what messages you added to it.