Oval Cherry Signs with Wrought Iron Hangers

[Keith Outten]

Here is my latest sign project I am working on. After days of rounding up the material and gluing up panels I finally have something to look at. The cherry ovals are about 24" by 14" and 1.75" thick two sided signs.

There will be six of these signs that will hang in the new Student Union at CNU. Two identical panels were CNC routed then the ovals were glued together back to back. A trip to the edge sander to clean up the glue and smooth the edges then they were given a very long radius edge prep...and now the necessary hand sanding part that is so time consuming. These signs will receive a custom dark stain that includes a filler material to match the walls and trim in the Student Union Atrium area and three coats of lacquer. The 60 degree V-carved text and oval detail are 1/4" deep.

I will post more pictures as the project continues.

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[Joe Pelonio]

Keith,

You even bend your own iron?

I'm anxious to see one finished. Funny, I just did a bunch of signs for a local college too. Most manufactured plastic architectural signs, I just added vinyl lettering. A couple of larger hanging ones I had to spray paint onto 1/4" acrylic to match the premade ones then vinyl lettering. Are you managing to talk them into those really nice signs or do they just have better taste than the places around here?

[Keith Outten]

Joe,

I started bending my own sign hangers a couple of years ago. I purchased a couple of the scroll benders from Metalcraft then bought another set of three benders then a parts bender and recently a bender that does large radius and thicker material. I rarely use rivets, I prefer to drill a hole in one piece at the mating surfaces then mig weld the hole which joins the two parts and is invisible after grinding the weld flush.

CNU is mid way in a 600 million dollar construction program that will require us to bring a new building online each year for the next ten years. The new buildings are Jeffersonian design and they are quite grand, not what you would expect at a state University. They love beautiful signs but the architects that design our buildings spec out the same old ugly acrylic signs for each new building. My boss has finally persuaded the powers that be to eliminate all signs from construction projects so we can do the design and fabrication in house. The cost savings are huge and the quality of our signs is beyond what we could afford otherwise.

I am kind of under the gun to get these six signs done so I can start the design and fabrication of the signs for the new Library construction project which is supposed to open before the end of this year. Of course the ADA signs have to be installed before we can get a permit to occupy the new building so being late is not an option on this one. Two weeks ago I finished installing all of the signs for Madison Hall, a new residence hall we just completed that is now full of students. I have two other residence halls that need every sign to be replaced, in fact all of the signs are missing. When I get a minute I need to complete the design for the new exterior building signs, 41 dual sided colonial style signs that will take me almost a year to fab and install which brings my backlog of work to almost three years.

In my spare time I am marketing new jobs for my own sign business. I have a couple small jobs in house now and will be submitting a bid for a new elementary school due to be completed next summer. There are other very large commercial jobs moving into the window of opportunity very soon, we shall see :)

It's well after 10PM here right now and I am on my way downstairs to shoot some lacquer on the first cherry sign that I stained this afternoon before we went to lunch with Jackie's family. Tomorrow morning early I will start the fabrication of the first of the six hangers.

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[Keith Outten]

The first sign is stained and has three coats of lacquer. The second is in the glue clamps tonight and I got several bending templates completed today for the hangers. I also finished the drawings and tool paths for all the remaining signs.

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[Mike Null]

Keith

I hope you'll do a tutorial on the gold fill for the letters.

Your work is outstanding.

[Michael Kowalczyk]

Wow Keith, Talk about job security:D . 3 years out on a ten year project. I hope they allow you vacation time with your wife and family. Thanks for keeping us posted. It is cool to see the progression of a long term project. We are coming close to the end of a 5 year project though most of the first years were just taking the designs from the architect and re-engineering them for ease of manufacturing, assembly and installation. Almost all of it has been donated and about 20+ volunteers helping to assemble the acoustic ceiling panels. Several hundred man hours but it was great fellowship time and many new friendships spawned from it.
Thanks again for your details about bending also.

[Keith Outten]

Mike,

After a meeting this morning it was decided we would try vector cutting thin gold plastic letters and dropping them into the V-carved areas. This will leave about 1/16th inch of the 60 degree bevel showing. I'm going to see if I can get the gold plastic cut this evening for a meeting tomorrow morning.

Michael,

I am fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. There is huge potential for me to see a constant workload of very high-end signs at CNU and the time line fits my age perfectly. In addition to signs I have already produced a few things in support of our construction program like custom ceiling access panels and Corian moulding. I hope to see more of these projects as they are interesting work and there is lots of room to be innovative. Last Friday I made six foot diameter templates for a medalion that is to be installed in the marble floor in our new Library. The 1/2" thick brass medalion is to be CNC machined but my schedule won't allow me to get involved with this one.

I expect to be doing a lot of metal bending in the future as there are projects like the exterior building signs that will require iron hangers. I also hope to be able to do some solid surface thermal bending as well, this will add some dimention to the right style of sign and would be enjoyable work.

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[Keith Outten]

A couple more pictures of my oval signs, they are almost done.

First Picture - Three of Four cherry ovals ready for painting.

Second Picture - Bending the lower strap, scroll.

Third Picture - rolling the lower strap.

Forth Picture - Top support strap.

Fifth Picture - Laying out the internal scrolls. These are two of my test and layout scrolls that are calibrated with 1" tick marks along the inside surface of the scrolls. A quick measurement from the last tick mark to the joining strap then adding the scroll length provides a perfect fit every time.

It was decided by the powers that be to paint the sign text and oval v-carve ring gold. A trip to Lowes to pickup most of the hanging hardware like acorn nuts for the standoffs and I have just about everything I need to finish the job. Welding is underway now so the next set of pictures should be the completed signs hanging in my shop to level the ovals and drill them.

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[Matt Meiser]

That scroll bender is pretty cool and looks simple--is it homemade?

[Keith Outten]

That scroll bender is pretty cool and looks simple--is it homemade?

Matt,

The scroll bender in the picture was purchased from Metalcraft. It is their second smallest scroll bender and although it could be duplicated fairly easily they aren't that expensive at $65.00 so I purchased both of their small benders. Larger scroll benders start getting more difficult to make and prices climb quickly but I found another source for similar benders that were very affordable. The Mark 3/3 bender is $399.00 and the roll bender/riveter is $485.00.

www.metalcraftusa.com

Harbor Freight and Grizzly are selling a three piece set of benders that are almost identical to Matalcraft's $1,000.00 set for $120.00....huge savings and the quality of the tools are very close.

I expect that someone who owned a plasma cutter could duplicate the smaller benders real quick and inexpensively :)

In the second picture note that you start bending without the black piece then install it as the bend progresses.

Once you have several benders and a couple other tools you can make some very interesting projects and it can be as enjoyable as woodworking.

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[Matt Meiser]

For $65, its probably not worth making buy the time you buy materials and figure in time messing around. I'll have to look them up. I have one of the Harbor Freight compact benders, but no scroll attachment because it has apparently been discontinued so this might be just the thing.

[Keith Outten]

Matt,

Follow this link to Harbor Freight and their three piece bending set. You can't tell from their web page but it includes a large scroll bender, a twisting tool and a riveting/rolling/bending tool. These three tools from Metalcraft would cost you over $1,000.00 and HF sells the set for $149.00 now, it is the same set I bought a couple years ago for $120.00.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=36131

You can tell from the picture in the HF page the scroll bender in the 3 piece set will bend multiple style scrolls and it will bend round and square stock as well. If you want to start bending wrought iron stuff buy this set and if you want more benders go to Metalcraft for the rest. Click on the link to the owners manual (http://www.harborfreight.com/manuals/36000-36999/36131.PDF) and you will see pictures of all three tools. Go to Metalcrafts web site and compare the same three tools and you will be shocked :)

I own the same parts bender from HF that you have and I have the scroll bending attachment for it but it is rarely used.

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[Matt Meiser]

Thanks for pointing that out. I had actually seen it before, but couldn't figure out why they charged $150 for the scroll bender--I didn't realize it came with three tools.

[Keith Outten]

Thanks for pointing that out. I had actually seen it before, but couldn't figure out why they charged $150 for the scroll bender--I didn't realize it came with three tools.

Just the scroll bender costs $399.00 at Metalcraft so you save more than 50% plus you get two more tools. The twister costs $190.00 and the Riveter/Bender/Roller is $485.00 at Metalcraft. Thats $1074.00 for an almost identical tool set from HF for $150.00.

Even for people who don't do iron bending as a hobby the riveter/bender/roller is a handy tool for any workshop. You can make your own tool hangers, shelf brackets and a host of other things that will save money and help get workshops organized.

Should you decide to order a couple of benders note that I have mounted mine to aluminum angle iron. They will quickly mount in any woodworking or metalworking vise which makes it easy to switch tools and adjust the height as necessary so you can swing long pieces of flat or round bar when bending. Even small scrolls can be 2 to 4 feet long when you start bending so you need to allow 4 to 8 feet of circular space around the bender.

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[Matt Meiser]

Kieth, a trick I learned from my dad, and used on my welding table, was to mount a couple 2" receiver tubes (like a 2" reciever hitch uses) under the bench top. I have my vise and compact bender mounted on 2" tubes that slide right into the receivers and I just pin them in place. I made a 1/4" hardboard top that lays over the welding table to use for my assembly bench when woodworking, so I just pull the metalworking tools out and store them. You can buy the receiver tubs at Tractor Supply pretty inexpensively. I just welded them right to the underside of the benchtop.

[Keith Outten]

Matt,

I'm working on that one to Matt. I recently bought two 24 foot lengths of square tubing. One length of 2" and one length of 2.5" square. I got tired of paying 20 bucks for short lengths of prefabricated receivers and decided to buy 24 feet. Now I can make all the receivers I want and put them everywhere.

Besides my truck hitch I have receivers mounted on my Dixie Chopper, Cub Cadet, Kabota tractor FEL, trailer and will soon replace both of the wooden support posts in my shop with steel pipe so I can weld receivers to the posts.

I have a one ton lifting boom that I welded a piece of 2" square to the bottom support so it can be used by all of my equipment and will be real handy in those new steel shop supports as well :)

I mounted an old hand crank boat winch to a piece of 2" square and use it to pull and lift stuff all the time. When I purchased my laser engraver I used the boat winch to pull it up the stairs to my second story shop office on a sled. The older I get the less I lift :)

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[Keith Outten]

A sneak peek at a couple of my oval signs sitting on my ShopBot with the hangers installed. Tomorrow I hope to be able to install these signs, I have been waiting on the building manager to provide location and height to install but he has been out of town.

The second picture is the dirty part of the job...fitting, welding and grinding the hangers. After they were painted I had to setup a custom jig that allowed me to level the hanger and position the oval for drilling since you can't use a level on an oval.

I will take plenty of photographs after the install for my scrap book and will post a few here for everyone to critique.

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[Mike Null]

Keith

Beautiful stuff but I'm at a loss as to how you applied the gold fill.

[Keith Outten]

Mike,

We couldn't use plastic inlay because we would have lost the detail in the font, it has delicate corners. Our only option since the machining was already complete was to paint the V-Carved areas with a small brush. Using acrylic paint we were able to wipe any paint that got on the surface with a wet towel. This was the hard way I guess but it was worth it to maintain the detail and the overall look of the sign design.

Using gold leaf would have been a nice option but we had to pick up a similar color in the building that was used on the handrails which was an anodized satin gold. When you see the install pictures you will see what I mean as the handrail is very prevalent in the building along with a half million dollars of cherry paneling in the three story atrium area.

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