Post #316527 by Numastar on Tue, Jul 3, 2007 11:45 AM

Aloha all,
Just wanted to share a project that I did over the weekend. We needed new menu boards for our restaurant here in Santa Cruz, Aloha Island Grille. So we took our illustrator files up the street to Staples where they printed out the files on their fancy HP 30" wide printer. I then picked up some foam backer board, just my luck it came in a 3 pack (20" by 30", our file were 24" by 20"). I got the foam in black since it creates a nice shadow behind the bamboo. I stopped by Cost Plus and got some 1.5" bamboo posts (3 6 footers for $20, not the cheapest but they were all in good shape and I didn't have time to wait for an order from Benson's imports.) The last stop was a craft store for some "Jute" string, very rustic looking and only $.99 a yard.

First I cut my foam boards down to 20" by 24", and then I used 3M photo adhesive to apply the photo paper to the foam. I sprayed the adhesive on both surfaces to achieve a nice bond.

As my board dried, I split my bamboo on the table saw, wearing a dust mask, gloves and ear protection. To protect my eyes I wore sunglasses, 'cause it was sunny. Once the bamboo was split I cut it into 25" and 22" sections, then I hit them with a blowtorch to give them that real aged look. (be careful not to over do it and start a fire).

Once my wood was ready, I laid it out on the board and marked where the bamboo criss crossed. Setting my table saw blade to 1/4" I cut grooves into the bamboo (on opposite sides) to get a flush mount. I then drilled holes for screws to go through the bamboo, foam and into some 3/4" scrap wood behind the foam.

Using a simple knot with the jute, I made the bamboo look lashed together by tying the jute like a bow on a package and hiding the knot behind the wood. The jute then covered up the screw to make it look very natural. Here is the first one I finished:

And here is the final product in place on the wall, now I just need to do the Dry erase specials board seen to the left:

This project was super simple and cheap too. Materials were:
Print outs $35
Foam 3 pack $14
Bamboo $20
Jute 4 yards $4
Photo adhesive $5
I had some scrap wood and screws so the materials total was only $78 and it only took me about 2 hours of fun work in the sun.

Thanks TCers for the inspiration and as I mentioned in another post we are "Tikifing" the joint a bit more and would love any ideas or comments. We're glad to be a part of keeping such an awesome style alive and hope that we can use our venue to inspire others.

Mahalo and Aloha for now!

Cheers,
Numa
Aloha Island Grille