This arrow was custom built as a set piece for a corporate conference. It needed to be extremely lightweight both to minimize shipping costs and because of how it was going to be hung. I used 1/2″ Gatorfoam®, a lightweight polystyrene sheet covered on both faces with a white wood-fiber veneer.
The design of the arrow was to match existing conference graphics; I imported this image into AutoCAD and scaled it to the size we desired. I built the sign with two sheets of the 1/2″ Gatorfoam® laminated together, with the top layer beveled at 45° to achieve the same bevel as the graphic.
I designed the frame of the arrow in four parts, with the bottom layer of the foam built to interlock with the piece next to it, creating a hidden half-lap joint. The four parts of the frame were identical, aiding in their construction. I created a template of each piece out of 1/2″ MDF, then flush-trim routed the foam pieces from the template.
Here the arrows are shown integrated with the rest of the set from the conference.