2026 Bee Sign

Year Built: 2026
Design By: Michael Lieske
Materials: Cedar board, Bee Medallions (Amazon)
Tool: Plunge router with profiling bit
Finish: Gloss Yellow Spray Paint, Two coats semi-gloss poly.

Design

Found a nice font and laid out the sign to be the width of the bee boxes. Laid it out in excel but a little tricky getting it to print properly to be correct size for the sign.

New Tools

Just some router bits to do the letters using a plunge router. New router bits were a Christmas gift!

Fabrication

Pretty simple. Used graphite paper to transpose the excel output onto the cedar. Then, using a profile bit in a plunge router, routed all the letters. The bee medallions fit perfectly in a 1" hole so just used a 1" drill bit to bury the medallions just a little into the wood.

Painting a Finish

Taped off the board and painted the letters using gloss yellow spray paint, three coats. Then, sanded off the surface of any overlap paint but, that introduced saw dust into the lettering so had to scrape that out the best I could and then hand painted with yellow acrylic to bring out the letters again. Lastly, two coats of semi-gloss poly on the surface and semi-gloss poly spray for the letters. Glued the medallions into the circular holes and that's it!

The Reveal

Easy Project - Done!