This is my dad's mill. He had a few old white pines felled on his land and we milled them into slabs. This was about 2 years ago and the slabs have been air drying since.

Here is some of the wood we milled.

This was my piece. I liked the curve to it and thought it would go over a door fairly nicely.

Trying to plan out the lettering. Whalen Woodworking is very long. "W"s are very long letters.

I tried running it through my drum sander which was a terrible idea. I don't normally work with pine.

I printed the letters out and placed them on the line I drew. You can see all the failed attempts littering the floor.

The letters were cut out with an Exact-o knife and then traced with pencil so I could actually see the lines.

Using a palm router and a 1/4" end mill bit I cut the letters out by hand. They aren't perfect but it was better than chiseling them out.

All of the edges were cleaned up with the knife and chisel. This went surprisingly fast.

A coat of shellac protects the wood from paint. This lets me be a little sloppy with the paint.

The letters get two coats of primer.

Two coats of flat black outdoor paint.

The sign is cleaned up by sanding carefully over the entire surface. The sign gets one more coat of shellac and two coats of poly.