FEATURE CNC ROUTERS NAME BY JEFF AUTHOR WOOTEN
Example of a CNC-routed sign created and installed by Signarama Milwaukee.
CARVING OUT A ROLE hen Chris Nelesen and his business partner, Brian Cass, joined the Signarama franchise family back in 2003 by opening a then-brand-new store in Milwaukee, their first location was housed in a 1,500-square-foot downtown space with offices above them. “It was a very small store with no loading zone and no overhead door,” remembers Nelesen. Fortunately success with their clients allowed Signarama Milwaukee the opportunity to expand their operations, their work force, and their goals. Six years after opening, they relocated to a larger location. This move gave them the ability to bring on more employees and more equipment to help them fulfill project requests. Five years ago, they moved again, ex20
Sign Builder Illustrated
panding even more by purchasing and remodeling an existing building in the area. Nelesen and Cass currently operate out of this 20,000-square-foot freestanding facility located along a busy street in the middle of Milwaukee. They have increased their employee count to fifteen and have brought onboard even more equipment to their production roster. One of piece of technology was a MultiCam 5-by-10-foot CNC router that also acts as a digital finishing machine for the shop. “It has both a rotary spindle and an oscillating knife. We use it to cut aluminum composite material (ACM), PVC, Foam-Core®, and Gatorboard® as thick as two inches,” says Nelesen. Why CNC? Nelesen comments that the sign industry can be broken up into two main bod-
November 2022
ies of service—the aforementioned digital printing (banners, graphics, vehicle wraps, wall coverings, etc.) and electrical (light boxes, channel letters, monuments, etc.). A vast majority of his Signarama Milwaukee’s business is large format digital printing, but Nelesen says the CNC router has allowed them to explore new products and think beyond selling and installing electrical signage. “We’ve started and grown our ADA division in-house thanks to the CNC router,” he says. “We began making ADA signs by cutting acrylic and Rowmark substrates and drilling the actual half-asphere holes for later placement of the Braille beads into them.” They’ve since brought a small tabletop engraving machine onboard to take over this function, but Nelesen credits his CNC router for getting Signarama signshop.com
All Photos: Signarama Milwaukee.
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Incorporating a CNC router into a shop’s workflow.