Blog - Page 3 of 20 - Augusta Sign Company

Carved Foamboard for Business Signage

August 7, 2023 By jalexspringer

HDU OPTION

Carved foamboard for business signage produced better results than I had anticipated. I had not used foamboard for decades becuse I had some issues with the product in its early development, mostly warping problems. This year, after some research on current foamboard technology, I chose Signfoam brand high-density urethane (HDU) for the job, mostly to save some cost for my customer who was looking for a sign within a certain cost budget. I had initially quoted the project in carved cedar, which I am most familiar with, but included a lower-priced HDU option.

PROPERTY MARKETING

The customer wanted to utilize a section of property he owned with frontage on a well-traveled roadway. The land was not useable for much, so he wanted to get some good marketing use from it with a nice new sign. He is a quality landscape contractor and wanted a showpiece…a nice sign in the middle of a large attractive landscaped bed…to remind passersby that he was available whenever they needed a good landscaper!

GOALS ACHIEVED

“Augusta Sign Company was able to turn my vision of a sign into a reality,” said Kevin Thompson, owner of Sylvan Scapes in Staunton, Virginia; “They were able to achieve my expectations and financial goals for the project.” Kevin saved the extra cost of permit secural by obtaining the necessary sign permit on his own. I always recommend that my customers take care of permitting when possible, not only to save them cost, but it also saves me time and I am able to focus more on sign design and manufacturing for my clients.

HOW I DID IT

For this project, I routed a 3/4″ thick HDU board and backed it up with a 3/4″ painted plywood board that was epoxied to the HDU. To make the sign more interesting and eye-catching, I suggested turning the 8X8 treated posts on a 45 degree angle to give them more prominence. I also recommended making an angled top-cut to give it yet more appeal. I was able to closely match the latex satin finish of the HDU background to the semi-transparent stain of the wood posts using help from Burkes Paint and Wallcovering, my local paint supplier. I used PPG Permanizer finish for the background, Ronan Bulleting Enamel for the lettering and PPG ProLuxe SRD Semi-Transparent Wood Finish for the posts.

SUCCESSFUL PROJECT

It was another successful project that I hope will get many heads turning for Kevin as potential customers drive by on Statler Boulevard in Staunton!

Mark Hackley is owner/operator of Augusta Sign Company, 540-943-9818

How I Made the Sign for Hunters Glen Farm, Lexington, VA

February 14, 2023 By jalexspringer

From Raw Cedar to Finished Sign

Towards the end of summer, I received a phone call from a nice lady about making a sign for a farm she had purchased in Rockbridge County where she had hired an architect to build a new home complete with a horse barn. Now that sounds like a dream come true, especially if you love horses the way she does.

Lettering the pinstripe inner border, gray.

She needed to have a sign completed after Christmas. That sounded very doable considering custom wood signs take a little while to design and construct, but usually only about 6-8 weeks after final design approval and any applicable permit approvals are received.

I was super busy with a huge project at Eastern Mennonite University (see link to the recent EMU blog article), so I had to put her project on the back-burner until that project was complete. She was very understanding and willing to wait! I contacted her again before Thanksgiving to see about writing up the new order. I wish all my customers were as creative in design as she was! We started off with an idea I had, but with the customer’s great input, came up with the final idea. The colors were really great together!

I was able to have the cedar panel made up and routed by mid-December and was able to get it sanded, primed, and painted by mid-January. I always enjoy the hand-painting process, even though it is very time consuming. In this case, I primed the entire front, back, and edges of the cedar panel with two coats of white Zinsser primer. After that was good and dry, I applied two finish coats of hand-mixed taupe over the entire front. After the taupe enamel dried, I flipped the sign and painted the back and edges in black enamel. On one-sided signs I like to paint the back first since when I flip the sign, there’s less chance that I can scratch or mar the main background paint for the customer’s sign. I try my best to end up with a professionally-finished sign, hand-painted in my shop in Augusta County, VA.

The sign with background still wet. Cold temperatures in the shop were slowing the drying process, so the sign was brought into the house where things are warmer!

Once the back and edges were good and dry, I flipped the panel and lettered the V-carved lettering “black”; the flat-routed horse artwork “hunter green”; and the V-carved river pinstripe “blue”. To finish it all up, I painted the inset oval V-carved border “gray”.

The completed carved, handpainted cedar sign for Hunters Glen Farm.

The oval sign was approximately 36X24 and would be mounted on a new fence at the corner of the acreage up by the main road, where the roadway to the farm originates. This particular project also included a smaller sign mounted on a post that would be installed near the horse barn. The customer would provide her own installation, which I appreciate now that I am nearing retirement age!! I was able to make the delivery as soon as everything was dry. The temperatures in my shop were so cold, that I opted to bring the sign into my house to make sure it was properly cured.

As I was looking back through my portfolio of sign jobs since restarting the sign business in 2015, I noticed I have done a lot of farm signs. If you own a farm and need a nice iconic wooden sign to grace its entrance, please do not hesitate to call!

Mark Hackley owns Augusta Sign Company, 540-943-9818, mark@augustasigncompany.com

Sign Upgrades at University Commons Building-Harrisonburg

December 23, 2022 By jalexspringer

Augusta Sign Company has been busy upgrading signs at Eastern Mennonite University, Harrisonburg, VA. Over the last several years I have helped with interior sign upgrades at University Commons Building, and Suter Science Center, along with a complete exterior wayfinding sign replacement! It has been very interesting and rewarding to see the new signage come to life on campus over the last several years.

One of six adjoining track walls, spreading a positive teambuilding message along the entire second floor hallway.

The EMU marketing department has made it easy to keep the school’s branding consistent across campus, and the facilities management department has helped with coordinating all the projects and purchasing the signs if new construction-related. Since I am a small, one man shop with an occasional helper, working with EMU on breaking these larger projects into phases really helped things stay on target over the past two years. It all started with the Suter Science Center. Phase 1 was the first floor which began mid-summer 2021, leading to Phase 2, the second floor right before fall classes resumed. Then there was the high end donor wall for the final dedication later in October. (See previous blog about the donor wall project.)

Working on Custom Sign for Coffee Shop in my sign shop

As soon as that project was off the list, we began planning the next project: rebranding the signs at the 2-story University Commons building. This project was extremely interesting as it included a very large EMU mascot “selfie wall”, and track wall graphics that spanned the radius of the indoor track that covered six large walls. At the same time, we planned out changing out all the existing exterior directional signs and cleaning all existing post structures. The exteriors were the first two phases; then the main entrace area of the first floor of Commons. Then the rest of the first floor was Phase 4. The track wall graphics were Phase 5, and the rest of the second floor including a neat wood sign for the Common Grounds coffee shop was the final phase. I was busy on these projects from early February through October, 2022.

It was another challenging but successful project. What did it all cost, you might ask? All the design work for every project was done by the EMU marketing department so that part was covered by the college staff budget, otherwise the design portion for all the signage would cost well over $5,000. The cost of materials and labor to fabricate and install all the signs ranged from $5,000-$25,000 per phase, depending on the amount of work involved. The Track Wall Graphics Phase was the most expensive and some of the partial floor phases were the least expensive. Actually part of the exterior signage project is still in progress, awaiting permitting from the city. The infamous 2022 materials shortages affected the delivery of aluminum extrusion for part of the exterior signage. What usually took three weeks to procure took six months! Fortunately for my sign company, because projects were staggered over years, I was mostly able to get the materials for the pricing I quoted EMU.

Second Floor of University Commons, View of Newly Completed Signage

It looks like 2023 may be the year for the EMU Campus Center Sign Upgrades! I am much looking forward to more work on campus, and have developed a great working relationship with this group of customers! God is very good; yes, very good!

Mark Hackley owns and operates Augusta Sign Company in Augusta County, VA. Contact: 540-943-9818

The Tools of My Trade

August 17, 2022 By Mark Hackley

ONE MAN-THREE MAIN FUNCTIONS

Different professions use different tools to get the job done. Since I am involved in all the day-to-day operations of a one-man sign shop, I need to be familiar with a variety of tools to do my job well. I guess, if I wanted to break it down into three important facets, my job is first marketing, sales and administration; then comes design; and last is production and installation.

*I spend at least 3 days per week in front of my laptop, where all design and sales is done…no wonder I wear trifocals! Oh well, it gives me a good excuse to miss putts out on the golfcourse!*

The tools I use in marketing and sales would not be much different than the tools my son uses as a software engineer, and that is utilizing computer apps and software to “hang my sign” on the virtual street of Googleland; which basically means I use a website with a regular blog as a tool to drive online searches to my website where my contact information is available. The same thing goes for design work: most of it is also done on the computer. But in this blog, I’ll be highlighting the tools I use out in the shop for producing my signage products and services.

Back in the day I used to sell these Mimaki plotters and printers for Tubelite out of the Charlotte, NC branch. When I went back into business in 2015, I purchased one from the company I sold for. They are now called TubeliteDenco.

OUTSOURCING IS MY FRIEND

Since I am a one man shop, I depend on one or two key suppliers for my sign panels, and ones that can provide custom cutting of the panels if needed when things get busy. Most panels nowdays are pre-finished, meaning there is not much shop painting needed unless I am working on a cedar sign project, where I would order raw cedar boards. About 90% of the panels will be finished with digitally printed films that are outsourced; the other 10% will get cut vinyl graphics that I prepare in the shop using a 30″ plotter. I can cut my own vinyl films and make paper patterns and stencils using this important tool.

*A random assortment of tools left on the worktable today out in the shop…*

Since a third of my time is spent in sales and marketing, and another third in design, that only leaves a day or two out in the shop each week. That means I have to be efficient out there to get things done. The process most performed in my shop is installing graphics on ready-to-letter panels. For this process I use a variety of squeegies. I use felt squeegies to apply printed vinyl and hard plastic squeegies to apply cut vinyl letters and logos. I also use application fluids, precision blades, and various tapes during the graphic application process. Many times I will have to cut a decorative shape in the panel and sometimes attach removeable panels and things like that, so I have all the basic woodworking and metalworking tools that you’d expect to find out in the shop for those kinds of things. On occasion, I get the chance to handpaint a sign, and I have a slew of brushes and other tools for handpainting signs, which I learned to do in the early 1980’s.

I learned to paint signs back in the days when we were actually called “signpainters”!
Here is a shot of some brushes I still get to use on occasion…

SELECTIVE INSTALLATIONS

As a one-man shop perhaps the most difficult task I have is installation of signs. I will not take on a job if it involves a difficult installation unless the customer takes care of that part. I do have a nice set of scaffolding, a very nice set of ladders and a crosswalk, digging tools, and other tools for signage installation, but as I get older, I limit myself to what I can actually do these days. I like to recommend other sign shops I am familiar with for the things I cannot tackle or at least feel uncomfortable trying to even consider.

Me, holding a heavy steel “drive cap” used in driving steel posts in the ground.
I purchased a slew of post driving tools for my Blue Ridge Tunnel Project back in 2020.

*A view of various tools out in one part of my workshop today…*

Mark Hackley owns and operates his small business, Augusta Sign Company, near Staunton, VA.

540-943-9818

Keeping Up With The Joneses

June 24, 2022 By Mark Hackley

Plastic wall letters have always been a great product for me to use for customers seeking a clean, durable brand. For red brick backgrounds, white plastic wall letters make a great choice. This particular customer wanted to add a new partner’s name to the existing name on the wall. I met with the owners to survey the area of the signage and what would have to happen to accomodate the additional letters. They wanted to keep the same letter height, typeface, and color scheme. The only difference would be to use durable 1/2″ thick acrylic versus the existing cut-out and painted plywood letters that they had used for decades.

Sometimes I refer to plastic wall letters as FCO letters, which stands for “flat-cut-out”. There are many ways to make wall letters. Plastic wall letters can be cut from flat stock or they can also be formed in a vacuum forming process using molds. Cutting the plastic letters from flat stock is done by a CNC router. Each letter is cut and then threaded holes are drilled in the backs to accept aluminum or stainless steel studs that hold the letters onto the wall.

The labor hours involved to install plastic wall letters is determined by the wall material: brick taking the longest, gyp board probably the shortest. Once the customer approves the final design, the letters are ordered. After a normal 4-8 week period, the letters arrive at my shop from the manufacturer along with a computer-generated pattern that I use to mount the individual letters on the wall. I arrive early on the site, set up my walkboard and proceed to layout the drill pattern. I find the center of the wall area and, after rolling the pattern like a scroll from each end, I tape the center at the marked centerline. Then I unroll each side, taping it down as needed with high-tack duct tape. Once the pattern is double-checked for center, baseline height, and level, I use a wall punch to make dimples in the brick at each stud location. Then I drill a 3/16″ hole into every marked stud hole, coming back with a 1/4″ drill bill to accomodate the 3/16″ studs and silicone adhesive.

Once the holes are drilled, I dry-fit each letter to make sure everything works and each letter fits correctly into the holes. After all letters are dry-fit, I come back one more time and apply a clear adhesive to each stud, fastening each letter in place. It was a hot day to install the letters, but fortunately my helper, Jennifer Hackley, was able to help me complete the final project!!

Mark Hackley owns Augusta Sign Company in Staunton, VA 540-943-9818