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

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.

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.

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 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