CNC Machining & Moulding An Oak Plaque - While She Sleeps Album Art

In February 2021 I reimagined the While She Sleeps artwork from the album Sleeps Society by designing and machining an oak version of the banner featured on the cover. I decided to gift this piece to the band, which lead to me machining a very limited run of two sizes for the band to sell at the album launch pop-up event they held. In 2022, a special edition version was in the works and the band landed on the idea of painting one of the plaques black, photographing it and using it as the album art. This led to me engraving the full track listing into a large piece of polyurethane model board which was also painted black, photographed and used as the reverse cover. Further down the line, the idea was sparked to create black versions of the plaque available for fans to own. Due to the lengthy machining times, machining oak versions wasn’t justifiable so we had the idea of moulding a version of the plaque and casting them from polyurethane. The importance to me with this project was to make a replica of the one featured on the artwork, not something similar. With that in mind, the master had to be an oak plaque rather than one machined from plastic or model board to ensure the wood grain and textures were present. Chapters 0:00 - CNC Machining 3:30 - Laser Engraving Flags 4:17 - Prep & Paint 5:26 - Preparing The Matrix Mould Shell 8:11 - Pouring Silicone Into Shell 14:40 - Casting Into The Mould 18:10 - Laser Cutting The Hanger & Prep 19:50 - Finished Plaques