Just about everything we design and build is something new for us, something we have never done before. At the very least each new job pushes the boundaries of past projects. We don’t always succeed on our first attempt but we do always get it right eventually, and without going over budget for our customers. One of our current signs in production is for an ice cream shop. It features oversized, dimensional ice cream treats on both sides of the name plate. Nothing is out of the ordinary with this request, except the sign needed to be lightweight, easily dismantled and tucked away each evening because of its location. A welded aluminum frame made the frame lighter than our usual welded steel armatures. We formed the woodgrain over this frame to minimize weight. We even used a sculpting epoxy that was twenty percent lighter than normal in our effort to sculpt the lightweight but very durable ice cream treats. We applied the epoxy as thin as possible but when I was finished, the delicious looking treats were a little too heavy to lug up a ladder safely. The solution was to start over and sculpt lower dimensioned, half models which weighed in at about one third of the weight of the fully dimensional ones. Looking from the front of the sign it is hard to tell the difference. (the upper ones are the flatter ones) Our client will get both sets of ice cream treats as a bonus (no extra charge). We have no doubt he’ll put them to good use.
