I have a family member with an important date this month, so I decided to make a gift rather than buy one. I decided to make a sign with our last name on it.
I chose some white oak harvested from my Grandpas woods, and some purpleheart that I had in the shop. I really like this light and dark color combination. After cutting the oak to size and making some purpleheart trim, I trimmed out the oak with the purpleheart. Then it was on to the letters. I cut out the letters using my band saw and scroll saw. I think I trashed all of the blades getting this done. The Purpleheart is pretty hard, or else my blades are really dull. If they weren’t, they are now. I had a lot of burning on the edges of the letters. I spent the next several days, sanding the letters to clean up the burn marks. At that point, I went out and bought a spindle sander, which greatly improved my results. Once I had the letters sanded, I glued them to the oak. A little final sanding, and it was time to finish with several coats of Laquer.
The laquer really brought out the grain of the purpleheart. It has an amazing flame in it. The sign turned out awesome. I actually was reluctant to ship it out, but since that was the reason for the build, I did it anyway. I’m really proud of this piece and of the way it turned out.
You can check out the build video below.

Here’s a close up of the flame in the purpleheart.