Learning Wall Doggin'... video

[Arlo Kalon 2.0]

I'm with ya on the terminology used Arlo,...hahahahaha the ground was always back behind us waiting to fly up and hit us in the butt! "Falls" seemed like a bad term to me also but I learned the hard way a couple of times how they came to be called that...

Bob Dick, the walldog I mentioned in this thread, spent over 30 years doing nothing but high work and never used a backboard on his stage plank. One day, while lowering to the ground, he stepped off backward, thinking he was at ground level. He fell and cracked a couple vertebrae from 3 feet high!

 

[Sign Up Graphics]

Sign Up Graphics

Thanks, for the nice link.

 

[Just Another Sign Guy]

great video. i grew up in an established shop doing large format work, the only brush i was allowed to touch (except when cleaning the artists' brushes) for many years was the push broom. i can still remember the sense of pride when someone would let me actually work on a project.

just for good measure since i must sound like a broken record lately..you can't learn wall doggin' from a video or the internet lol.

 

[signgal]

OMG! thank you so much Arlo... it was very inspiring... i swear i teared up... beautiful... I mean this is really what i envisioned when i got in the business.

 

[Pro Signs & Graphix]

Well...this puppy is staying on the porch!!

The old timer master painters I worked with required me to learn very correct letter construction by hand. The people with computers totally bypass this now. More importantly, they required good composition in the layout... nobody is learning this anymore with computers as is evident by the multitude of WRONG layouts you can witness everywhere on any given day.

How right you are Arlo. The prevalent philosophy is such that "you can just peel it of and do it again". While vinyl and other things offer some advantages it has also destroyed the philosophy of "do it right the first time". (I was guilty of that when I first started, with computers of course - and I learned reaaal quick very early on).

I still remember the pleasure of seeing a good wall when growing up. My hat is off to the "old" dogs

 

[Pro Signs & Graphix]

I mean this is really what i envisioned when i got in the business.

Hanging from a rope??

 

[round man]

Yes hanging from a rope! When i started in the early seventies contractor wall dogs were making between $500 and $1000 a day,...back then you could buy a gallon of red bulletin color for $10,..its $50+ nowadays,..A new ford F-100 was $7900,..that was more than enough to buy a new truck every month off the showroom floor,if you could count on gross figures....you do the math,...there were many years when I could not do work fast enough to keep up with the demand,...this was of course many years before digital printers

 

[Buntrock]

Thank you for posting that short film, it was excellent. I've never been that high painting before but greatly respect these guys.

 

[threeputt]

Thanks Arlo. Great post. Takes me back. Never did the pictorials but tons of "high work". (lettering only)

Love the feeling you get working way up there. Finally sitting down on the swing stage to eat your box lunch at noon. Watching the hustle and bustle of Portland, Oregon below me.

Thanks again. That was truly neat!

 

[Joe Diaz]

Cool post. Nothing beats walldoggin. Although I had to chuckle at the"...its only in NewYork and maybe LA that you can see new hand painted advertisements going up.." part at the beginning of the movie.

 

[round man]

Arlo the story about the dot on the "i" could very well be true,....I once did a billboard at Pocono international raceway where the dot on the "i" in Winston Cup Series was almost 8' square,...there's alot of walls out there with copy larger than that,..the one we did was at the end of the long pond straightway which is over a mile long and had to be legible from at least that far,....masonry can soak up some paint, so I can see where it might very well be a true story,....

 

[deegrafix]

Great video! I know one other woman wall dogger besides me. We did a huge pictorial billboard in the 80's about 30' up using the swing stage concept, without the stage. Instead we tied together 2 extension ladders and cut MDO to put over the rungs and walked on that. In the middle I was about 3' lower than I was closer to handcranks and had to perfect a sort of walk that could go up and down hill on a skinny path that moved in every direction while carrying as many pots and brushes as possible. I didn't care: I was young, fearless and excited to be allowed to paint a pictorial! The whole extension ladder walk board was crazy but seemed like a good idea at the time.

Most of my wall dogging was from ladders or ladder jacks though- not so high up. I never thought I'd say it but I miss the feel of that fitch making a perfectly smooth line on concrete. I miss the quill on MDO more though! And the Iwata and the smell of one shot and lacryl.....

Great post Arlo!

 

[signgal]

Great video! I know one other woman wall dogger besides me. We did a huge pictorial billboard in the 80's about 30' up using the swing stage concept, without the stage. Instead we tied together 2 extension ladders and cut MDO to put over the rungs and walked on that. In the middle I was about 3' lower than I was closer to handcranks and had to perfect a sort of walk that could go up and down hill on a skinny path that moved in every direction while carrying as many pots and brushes as possible. I didn't care: I was young, fearless and excited to be allowed to paint a pictorial! The whole extension ladder walk board was crazy but seemed like a good idea at the time.

thanks for sharing... where and when was that? I'm dying to know if i'd seen and admired your work

 

[Arlo Kalon 2.0]

I never thought I'd say it but I miss the feel of that fitch making a perfectly smooth line on concrete. I miss the quill on MDO more though! And the Iwata and the smell of one shot and lacryl.....

Great post Arlo!

NOTHING beats opening up the doors to the shop and being greeted by the heavy aroma of turps and 1SHot paint. My blood is stirring just remembering it.

 

[Si Allen]

Walldogging is not hard ... if you start at a young age!

Here are a couple of Wallpuppies!

 

[Jillbeans]

Arlo it just took too long to load here so I did not watch it.
But I am sure it was a cool vid.
I am just a monkey with a brush on all my wall jobs.
I design 'em, then my friend Bill figures how we do 'em.
He wrote this article.
Worst job was when we were painting a barn, on three sections of scaffold which was on top of a shed roof.
And that jagoff had to jump up and down on them a few times just when I was ready to start painting.
"Just trying to break you in, Kid!"
Talk about shaky hands.
Love....Jill
PS
Si, there will never be any more bluegrass festivals at John Pat's, he is very ill.

 

[Arlo Kalon 2.0]

Si, there will never be any more bluegrass festivals at John Pat's, he is very ill.

I love bluegrass festivals... used to be a blugrasshole myself. Picked a Martin D28 Custom 150th anniversary model. The Bluegrass Festival of the Americas on the Belvedere Plaza in Loisville, KY is best one I've attended,.

 

[GP]

A beautiful piece of "film" (note: irony)

GP

 

[Jillbeans]

PS
Teri thought up the proper term for females: Wallbitches! I love it.

 

[Joe Diaz]

NOTHING beats opening up the doors to the shop and being greeted by the heavy aroma of turps and 1SHot paint. My blood is stirring just remembering it.

You're lucky. I can't smell anything anymore... probably because of those fumes.:ROFLMAO:

Funny story, the last time we did career day with the highschool, a high school girl passed out after being in the shop for only a few minutes. ...and THAT is why it was the last time we did career day at our shop.