Carved, gold leaf, smalt

[Billct2]

We originally made this sign 27 years ago, it was damaged and not salvagable so we remade it. HDU carved, painted with acrylic polyurethane, gilded, smalted. PVC panels with gold leaf. Repainted posts and installed. As soon as it was carved I wish I had made the numeral smaller and a little more space between the letters....

 

[JR's]

nice

 

[Johnny Best]

Yes, very nice.

 

[Z SIGNS]

Sweet sign.And a nice technique. I have a few that have been out there for over 25 years and they still look good. I like raised leafed letters with smalt b'grounds

 

[mark-s]

Good work, like it.
mark-s

 

[signage]

nice sign!

 

[Gino]

Saweet !!!

 

[Billct2]

A agree Brian, and smalting with raised letters is much easier. One suggestion I heard that I want to try is to put a small "shoulder" on the bottom of dimensional letters to make smalting even simpler.

 

[SIGNTIME]

I have never worked with smalt but could you route out the background leaving just the boarder then smalt the background then route the lettering after its dried?

 

[JR's]

Hi Bill,
I have a couple of questions if you could clarify that would be great.
It's tough telling from the photo, but is there a outline that is gilded around the letters also? Or does the gold go right to the edge of the carved letter?

And is there a thin black outline around the gold lettering or does the smalt go to the edge of the gold?

Thanks in advance and thank you for sharing some quality craftsmanship.

 

[Billct2]

Signtime - I don't think that would work, the smalt would be really hard to clean and the edges would be ragged.
JRs- I gild slightly onto the face,I wouldn't call it an outline though. You have to leave a slight outline around the edge of the letters when apply the "glue" for the smalt. The background gets painted the same color as the smalt so that the outline and any thin spots don't show. That's why using raised letters is easier.

 

[Marlene]

love it! I've made a couple of sign with smalt and wish I could do more as they are so awesome looking. I did mine with gold leaf stud mounted letters. I just drilled the holes, dropped in studs into the holes so I could find them again and applied the smalt. All my signs were single sided so it was easier that way.

 

[cwade440]

Nice work! 27 years is a nice run too. The original posts were wood? If you made that sign today from scratch would you use PVC for the posts?

 

[Billct2]

The original posts were aluminum, and we just repainted them. The PVC caps were dinged up so we replaced them. If I made it today I'd use the aluminum again.

 

[TimToad]

Looks great! Nice respect shown for the margins and sophistication of the business type.

I agree on the margin on the address and letter spacing, but its all still super legible.

 

[SignsSupport]

Really exquisite design. Quite sophisticated and seemingly tailored to fit the niche.
Congrats!

SignsSupport

 

[studio 440]

We originally made this sign 27 years ago, it was damaged and not salvagable so we remade it. HDU carved, painted with acrylic polyurethane, gilded, smalted. PVC panels with gold leaf. Repainted posts and installed. As soon as it was carved I wish I had made the numeral smaller and a little more space between the letters....

what kind of gold is that it really pops and did you seal it ? Beautiful work

 

[Billct2]

23k loose leaf gold. Never seal gold leaf except on vehicles and glass. I also leaf a little sooner that I used to. I found that waiting till it's really dry will give a brilliant gild, but that also makes it harder to read, and risks losing the window of tack and having holidays.

 

[John Miller]

We originally made this sign 27 years ago, it was damaged and not salvagable so we remade it. HDU carved, painted with acrylic polyurethane, gilded, smalted. PVC panels with gold leaf. Repainted posts and installed. As soon as it was carved I wish I had made the numeral smaller and a little more space between the letters....

Just saw this Bill, really nice sign. It doesn't look really large but has major impact. I love smalt.