Sign Painting in the old days

[OldPaint]

its ok patti...........you aint gettin any younger)))))

 

[Pat Whatley]

Don't worry. I'm already bitching about LED screens/power point taking over my convention business and dirt cheap online sources killing my banner business. Damn kids are ruining everything.

 

[SignManiac]

Back when I pioneered cave painting, I used to get a side flank of brontosaurus for a medium sized mural. Now I'm lucky to barter for a McRib...Sheese, what's a guy gotta do to make a buck anymore.

 

[pjfmeister]

Here is a couple "back in the day" pics old school of my Grandpa and my Dad...

 

[Pat Whatley]

Seeing them painting that billboard without a guard behind the stage reminds me of talking to an old sign guy years ago. He was painting a wall with a stage that was nothing more than a 2" x 12" board hanging from a couple of extension ladders. Mentioned the lack of a rear guard to him, he told me he didn't need it, having the guard made you forget where you were and you'd do something stupid. Without the guard you made dang sure every move you made was the right one.

 

[Billct2]

There was a nice old sign guy here who died when he fell about 15 feet from a scaffold while doing a railroad bridge about 1976

 

[VolunteerSign]

i recall getting $150.00 for a 4x8 fully coated and painted with one shot with full graphics and install. thats back when one shot was more damn durable than car urethanes. all banners were painted, vehicle graphics were laid out at night on an overhead....oh man how things have changed

Remember when someone from the Coke company would drop off blank metal panels to be lettered then they would pick them up and add the panels with the Coke logo to each end lol.

 

[OldPaint]

did this one last week. its a COKE sign, above this panel. you can see more on line if you google coke sled signs. this was just the 12" X 60" bottom.

 

[visual800]

oh the horror!

 

[visual800]

obviously back then if you had good clipart why not use it a couple of times.....I dotn quite know what the hell that font on the grading sign is buy its horrible, hell its all horrible. This had to be back in late 80s

 

[visual800]

hand painted and sprayed...yeah I dont miss those days at all!

 

[Cross Signs]

Here's one that I got from Jill

 

[Arlo Kalon 2.0]

Seeing them painting that billboard without a guard behind the stage reminds me of talking to an old sign guy years ago. He was painting a wall with a stage that was nothing more than a 2" x 12" board hanging from a couple of extension ladders. Mentioned the lack of a rear guard to him, he told me he didn't need it, having the guard made you forget where you were and you'd do something stupid. Without the guard you made dang sure every move you made was the right one.

Pat... same story here. A father and son painting duo I used to shadow around took me out to a grain silo job with them once. The were painting a Farm Bureau logo 40 stories in the air with no backboard on the swing stage. They prided themselves on their fearlessness. A few years earlier though, as they were lowering themselves to the ground, the father thought they were there and stepped backwards off the plank from 3 FEET UP and broke his back!

 

[Arlo Kalon 2.0]

My problem with high up wall work was always with the terminology of the equipment being used. It's called "rope falls". I would have felt better if they were called "rope stays ups". And the plank being called a "swing stage". Sorry, I don't WANT to swing up that high. I always got made fun of on high wall work from walking along the stage with my hand on the wall. I'd get asked "Arlo, what ARE you holding onto there? You gonna grab that wall if you start to fall?".

 

[kstompaint]

I got started the "old" way too, in the early 90's. We had a large FLEET account that was reflective vinyl. The owner made templates and I would trace them to the vinyl with stabillo and hand cut them. The letters on the trailers were large, single color but the cabs had an outline and the smaller word "Transport" was only about 2.5" and in an Old English style font. I'd trace and cut the letters and then nest them on the second color and cut the outline. It was boring as hell but it sharpened my skills, I'll hand cut a lot of stuff to this day and people look at me like "how (or why) did you just do that." For painting, he would lay out everything quick & rough with a stabillo and we would go to it with the 1-Shot. At first, he laid out what I was to paint pretty firmly and as I got the hang of it, his sketches loosened up and eventually I was able to lay it out by myself. We did a lot of race cars & little league 4x8's. I don't even have any photos because it didn't seem like anything out of the ordinary to photograph (plus we didn't have a camera on our phone... or a phone at all... in our pockets). I still use paint quite a bit but almost exclusively pinstriping & custom painting.

The talk about heights reminded me of one particular story when we were painting an "AGWAY" logo on a large fuel tank. The restoration company had already coated the tank and left us their "spider." A cage, about 3x8 hanging from the top of the tank by ONE wire. When he moved, I moved and visa-versa. There is no amount of money that would get me up in that thing today but I didn't really think much of it at 18.