Road Sign Font

Glowforge Tips and Tricks
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I was driving on I-70 past the Vail ski area in CO on vacation and remarked on all the construction how funny it would be if the orthopedic surgeons at Vail snagged one of the Shoulder Work road signs for their clinic. Then realized I could make one for our orthopedic surgeon who do shoulders. Now, I could have Glowforged it, but man is 3D printing a simple sign easier (since placing all those letters is less fun than it sounds - but i have done it). But this required me to go find the actual road sign fonts (that is a rabbit hole to go down!). Anyway of course the internet provides (the actual purpose of this post was to distill down that font exploration exercise to the link below):

Note: for most roadsigns in the US we use the ā€œEā€ variant font. (you can download on the releases links on the right of the GitHub repo.

IMG_1915
IMG_1915612Ɨ816 146 KB

For those that want it, here is the STEP file (if you donā€™t know what that is, you probably donā€™t want it) the 3D printable files are on Printables (Prusaā€™s model library) here:

Shoulder Sign v3.step (621.1 KB)

Although I probably didnā€™t need it, I glued up the model with 3D Gloop PLA cement (the tolerances are really tight so the parts friction fit well). Sorry for the lack of banana in the pic (the entire model is about 130mm tall when assembled (fits perfectly on a Prusa Mini+). The colors were Prusament Orange, Galaxy black and Galaxy silver. The model (except the center post) prints without support and I used the new alpha build of prusaslicer 2.5 with the ā€œArachneā€ slicing algorithm to make the text better.

If I get inspired I might make a Glowforge version of the sign base for everyone (have a bunch of projects right now I need to get finished)
I got inspired!

edit: added link to laser version

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Hey thanks! Love your sign. Be sure to update on the orthopedic surgeonsā€™ reactions.

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What a fun sign for the context! If you ever want other signs, all the specs are in the official DOT manual, and the PDF includes vector data you can pull out with Illustrator :nerd_face:

https://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/ser-shs_millennium.htm

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Very cute! Think it will be very appreciated.

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Iā€™m most surprised that it took you this long to connect the ortho folks to that sign!

Thanks for the font, and thanks to @ekla for the DOT specs!

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In Denmark the signs for decreased speed zones say ā€œFart Kontrol.ā€ My inner 12-year-old got a kick out of that when I visited.

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Before you tackle the Glowforge version. Get yourself some 3M sheets and apply that to your acrylic. Also cut a alignment guide out of corrugated cardboard to place the letters.

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Fantastic, I would love to hear about their reactions also, this is such a cool idea and it looks great!

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Iā€™ve heard they like to us jet propulsion when driving! :wink:

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Fun to be a tourist in Germanic language countries - ā€˜city tourā€™ = Stadtrundfahrt :smile:

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Fun to see a comprehensive list. :grin: Thanks for posting!

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So fun! I love this.

Now I need to find one apropos to my neurologistā€¦.:thinking:

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let us know what you find. :slight_smile:

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