Advice Please

[metalmaker]

Hi guys, I have been asked to bid on repairing (4) entrance signs for a HOA. The current signs are a 7'x11' ellipse made with natural stone tiles with 12" metal faced foam letters glued onto the face, which the young vandals keep tearing off. Rather than giving the kids more fun, I thought it would be better to use a solid surface with the lettering carved or lightly sandblasted into it. I have no sign experience so I'm not sure what to use. Signfoam, extira, or I see some that look like Corian, but I don't know. My table is 4'x8' so whatever I use will have to be that size or cut in sections and put together. I know I going in over my head but, that's how you learn and I really could use the money. Thank you for any advice or suggestions. Dan

[gc3]

Outsource it to Joe, work in his shop for free to learn...add 25% plus installation...





Gene Crain
www.plantasymaderas.com (http://www.plantasymaderas.com)

[bot_master_general]

Try PVC .75" and carve a panel to fit inside the 7 X 11. Stud mount, double sided tape and silicone the carved and painted panel to the tile surface.

Practice you routing skills on .50" scrap pieces. Its not hard. Take your time. I had the same feeling. Got to make money with this machine.

Painting PVC requires priming it with Tie Bond Adhesive. It promotes paint to PVC which is tricky.

HDU is easliy damaged with stones if vandalism is the issue. Pvc can take a lickin and keep on tickin.

Call if you would like to discuss issues.

Mike

[joe]

I'm going to give Gene his usual commision.

Dan, I have the pleasure to work with several HOA's each year. Seldom do they mature into work.

Price is very important with HOA's. They seldom have a budget for you to work with so it's best to talk about money at the start. I wouldn't get too involved with design or concepts unless there's some kind of financial understanding.

I'd be glad to give it a look and offer a few suggestions. Please post a photo or two. It might help someone else on the forum

Joe Crumley
www.normansignco.com (http://www.normansignco.com)

[metalmaker]

Thanks for your responses.
Gene, great idea, probably the best way to go. Even though I am not in the sign biz. I have read enough about and from Joe to know what an opportunity that would be!! It says alot about the man to have his knowledge and skills and to share it freely with total strangers everyday to help them.
Mike, I'm in your first post,how cool! I didn't think about the PVC. Great suggestion. I was wondering about a 4x8 ellipse panel making the lettering too small. Also, with .750 would the letters need to be flat bottom as opposed to V-carve because of the depth, or can I alter the toolpath to make them more shallow?
Professor Crumley, thanks for chiming in. Your right, as the Rep. was amazed at the price of just replacing the letters from 3 shops. My suggestion about the whole panel might be more than they want to spend at one time, or they can keep paying me to replace them every year! Don't know if they will figure it out. I will try to get some pics up and maybe some idea of the budget and go from there. Thanks again to everyone for your time.

[navigator7]

Dan,
Somewheres around $300 buys a very small camera that could be inserted into your work. It's motion activated and you can download pics with a date time stamp.
Some can be infrared for day and night use.
If this has happened before it may be worth a little research.
Heck...if an insurance company is involved they might purchase the needed equipment.
Another sign you might be hired to make is "Smile, You Are On Candid Camera!"

[metalmaker]

Chuck, you are right about the camera, I still have a motion activated one from my old store just for the same reasons. I have offered it to them to use if they want. Hehe, I like the "candid" idea! Thanks,Dan.

[bot_master_general]

Dan

I must agree with Joe about the HOA's purchasing practices. We as sign makers always would like to offer the nicest and prettiest solution to our customers problems.

In a lot of cases we had blown ourselves out of the water by offering a $100 sign when they wanted to spend $10. Alot of times the only way you found out you lost is when the $10 version has been installed.

Especially in this economy money as most of us know is in short supply.

In regards to your questions. You certainly change the depth of the cuts. Also their are many different angle v-bits. The fun is learning how to use them and the different looks you can acheive.

I only started with my Shopbot in January of this year. Compared to the other folks on this forum I know very little. However, we have produced some nice results.

Happy Thanksgiving to all and may next year bring some measure of profitability.

Mike

[metalmaker]

Thanks Mike, between you and Joe, I'm starting to get the picture. I will make contact with the Rep. and get a better idea of what we are dealing with. If it gets that far, would you recommend a 4x8 single panel that will leave a stone border around, or a 7x11 multi-piece panel to fill the entire area? Thanks again for sharing you time and help.

http://tinypic.com/r/28mpc8k/6

http://tinypic.com/r/2qi3es6/6

[clueless]

From the photos, I'd stop using double sided tape to apply letters like that and I'd start stud mounting the letters into the sign. If done right, it's going to be a lot of effort to pull off a properly installed letter.

[metalmaker]

Hi Steve, this is the 3rd time these will be replaced. Some of them look like they were glued with construction adhesive and, up close you can tell they were stud mounted at on time. Thanks for your response. Dan

[clueless]

Dan, I understand. They are able to remove them because they were not properly installed. A good installation for a sign on the ground like that should have prevented it from happening. My guess is that they keep trying quick fixes to solve it when they really need to start over and do it right, possibly using stud mounts and something like Lord's adhesive.

Just my opinion.

[joe]

Your photo is very helpful.

Solving the delima of letter theft is quiet easy, providing there's enough funds to replace the background.

No matter what adhesive is applied to the back of the letters or how many studs are drilled in, there's an invitation for theft with pedestrian level signs.

There's a couple techniques which have been successful for me. First is to reduce the depth of the letter. And have them routed as part of the background. Either V carved letters or rounded over letters.

This oval is begging for something creative beyond letters.

Joe Crumley
www.normansignco.com (http://www.normansignco.com)

[metalmaker]

Thanks Joe for having a look. The pvc idea Micheal had seems good to me, easy to rout, not real expensive, and basically vandal proof except maybe spray paint? With a 4x8 table and the background being 7x11, would you try to cover the entire background or just go with a 4x8 inset maybe painted black and the letters matching the stone in color? My concern is a 4x8 panel the lettering would be too small. However, these signs are quite close to the street so maybe it could work. Pardon me, once again my inexperience is showing. Thanks,Dan

[dakers]

One thing i always wanted to try on a job like this where you have exposed concrete block for a background is to cut the water proof backer board they use behind tile in showers into designs and letters then really glue it up good. then glue them to the wall and spray acrylic aggregate then paint with elastomer acrylics. it would all look like one piece. I have had similar problems with signs like this and still do with vandals taking letters. Lately i try to tell them not to use aluminum letters because the scrap value from stealing them. I Like Joe's ideas always and have found his thoughts to always be perfect for the problem.

[clueless]

If you think putting PVC up on the back is going to solve the problem, I think you're in for a shock. If they are prying off the letters, they'll quickly figure out they can carve profanity into the PVC with a knife.

I can assure you with the proper mounting techniques, if they come off, they'll be pulling the concrete with it, and they'll be pulling them off with a crowbar, not a pocket knife or screwdriver.

[joe]

Two Considerations:

Since there won't be a background material large enough, as a single sheet to cover the oval area, dealing with seams will be a considerations. It's not out of the realm to apply a snythetic stucco, covering up the ugly brick pattern. To accomplish this, a metal lath wouuld be a good choice. A hoppergun would make short work of stucco application

Most lumber company's offer siding materials which come in 12"X16'. Some of these are a concrete composition which is tough to deal with however there area composites for exterior use.

Why do some signs have vandalism? As stated earlier, grould level signs by walkways, in high traffic area's are most subject. It makes no sence to apply thick letters in this situation. Recessed letters would be a good choice.

Once again, It's all about the money. What's the budget. In order to move ahead that needs to be settled. You can ball park it with different materials and techniques, however you'll probably waste your valuable time.

Joe Crumley
www.normansignco.com (http://www.normansignco.com)

[dakers]

Yep, the recessed letters. Perfect. Has anyone tried cutting the concrete composed backer board with a hand held jig saw or band saw?
I read in one of my sign trade jounals years ago how a guy was using it for exterior sign with perfect results. I have not used it yet but it is available locally about everywhere. Have to google it and study it more. Proably has a hundred different names

[navigator7]

Hi Dick,
I just laid some ceramic tile in the kitchen, living room, hallway and bathroom.
Included is a pic of my wife's stern:

Under her keel is some stuff with a bunch of squares on it.
It this what you are referring to?
I found scoring the stuff with a utility knife was superior to any but the most needed saw cuts.
It dulled my sawzall blade in no time.
It makes a dusty mess and the edge is certainly not pretty after cutting with a recip blade.

5601

[mikeacg]

Chuck,

That 'dusty mess' is also dangerous to your health. Cutting with a motorized saw is not recommended and a mask is a definite requirement.

Mike

[navigator7]

We survived, Mike.
It was -5ºf for most of the operation. We took the saw outside to make cuts and brought the machine back in. Placed a heat lamp over the tiles to be cut before hand or they'd freeze to the table.
Five minutes or so unused and the tile saw froze up in the water beneath.
Uhhhhgggggg!
But hay...we have new tiled floor that looks great, new carpeting and custom granite counter tops under construction.

So my question to you is: "If a slimy guy like myself takes really good care of my wife, for selfish reasons only, what are the chances she won't divorce me when the word "ShopBot" starts occurring routinely in conversation?

;-)

[mikeacg]

If she's smart, she'll blame all of us for putting such foolish ideas in your head! Think long and hard about what products you want to produce so you get the right machine. Download all the demo programs so you can get familiar with them. When the machine shows up, you want to be ready to start making money. My machine ended up being a couple of weeks later than promised (I drove up and picked it up without my helper because of that...) but it meant that, once the wiring was done, I was ready to go! I also bought a machine I could write a check for so I didn't have payments looking over my shoulder while I was learning!

Mike

Did you see my tile project on Facebook?