Shop sign

[Michael Cochran]

21 hours ago, Frosty said:

About high wind areas and signs. Be sure the part of the wall is strong enough to take heavy dynamic,  lateral loads. It's not so hot to have a sign strong enough to withstand high winds if it rips pieces out of the wall.

Thanks for the proportion drawings Vaughn good info. Who knows maybe I'll make a sign someday.

Working with the sign guys in highways maint. there was an old adage went something like, "If you can't read it through a foggy windshield at 50mph. it's not a sign. On the road side I'd use symbolism and something catchy say. BIG anvil with a smith behind it pointing up the driveway with the tongs. Anvil horn pointed up the drive too. Can't hurt to double down on the message. Of course the smith in the sign wouldn't really be behind it, just a silhouette on top of the anvil, it'd look the same from both directions. Then again you might have a neighbor who drove from the "backside" you wanted to receive a different message. 

Hanging one for you own satisfaction is a good thing IIRC they're called "vanity signs," though I don't think that always applies. Something cool that puts a smile on your face is perfect. At one point I was going to cut out a BIG letter E from sheet steel and hang it over the door then time folk to see how long it took to figure out the word play.

Frosty The Lucky.

One day if you get bored enough you should look up a local statue. In Birmingham, AL there's a statue of Vulcan looking over the city. He faces towards 'downtown' and the north side of the city. Guess what you see when you look out the window on south side. 

I'm usually ok with word play but you have me stumped on the steel "E" sign.

33 minutes ago, Anderson G. Phillips said:

Hey, Love the sign concept and there are some good thoughts above. I am filming today for our channel here at BLU so I did a quick video on my thoughts on this bracket if you have time to check it out. Good luck and I hope you post up pictures as you build it. Also I would love to see the place where it is going.

https://youtu.be/FwNkukUOnr4

I really appreciate the time you took to make a video response, it's the first time I think I've ever seen something like that. I just watched the video and it's definitely helpful. One thing you mention was the rivets in the middle. Truth is I wasn't sure about them, I debated on doing a plug weld from behind instead of doing the rivets there. I was planning on collars but didn't even take the time to think about how the ones between the little scrolls would be put on so thanks for pointing that out to me.  The scrolls on the end were actually supposed to be even on the top and bottom, I just draw curves better in one direction that the other and the top one got a little wonky. I'm not sure what's going to happen with the sign itself, I still have to figure out the lettering before I finish that aspect. The openness on top was something else I was debating on how to deal with. I thought again briefly about mounting that little cast iron 'anvil' there and was again put off by the weight even though I could drill some holes and epoxy bolts to it that's welded to plate that's attached to the horizontal. However I don't want to do a bunch of welding on this. I could always do as suggested about and put a sheet metal anvil shape on there but again that's going to require welding. By the way I'm looking at pipe collars.   I really appreciate the compliments on my little sketch. Truth is this is the first project I've actually designed, most of my things are made on the fly.

 

I'll definitely be posting pictures if I can pull this off. I'm probably going to be making some more sketches before I get around to the build so that I can address some of the concerns mentioned. I'd hate to try to fix some of the things and end up making bigger problems.

Thank you everyone for you help so far.