Installing acrylic letters

[GaSouthpaw]

I won't tap 1/4" inch thick letters—not enough threads.

I couldn't even venture a guess as to how many times I've had to kick back orders calling for 1/4" stud-mounted acrylic. At least with aluminum, you can "cheat" and go a little deeper with a finer thread.

 

[tedshock]

Incorrect! It all depends, but yes, gemini will use either pads, blocks, metal inserts, or direct thread into thick acrylic for stud installation.

I see your picture, and I raise you one:

While Gemini may indeed offer stud with block on thicknesses other than 1/8" and 3/16", looking in their own 2024 catalog (and at least 2023), the "standard" choice shows flush stud for 1/4" + (as I stated above). It doesn't even show an option in the catalog for stud with block past 3/16".

I realize on the portal (True Quote) you can select stud w/block, but again, it's listed AFTER "flush stud". In fact, "flush stud" is the first option after plain. I would think anything listed first in a list would be the default. To re-iterate my original comment, stud with block is not the "industry standard" based on the big league manufacturers offerings. It may have been at one time but things change.

 

[Johnny Best]

Spanjer Brothers! Use to ger the wood letters from them and gold leaf them. They hand made all the beautiful wooden letters. Thats going back over 50 years ago.

To answer OP question. That size acrylic letter has to have studs.

 

[tedshock]

When I started out in signs, flat cutout letters in thicknesses greater than a quarter-inch were rare. It may be that, back then, Gemini or Spanjer Bros. offered thick acrylic letters (1/2" thick or greater), with threaded holes in the backs. But I don't remember them if they did. The standard thicknesses for flat cutout letters were 1/8", 3/16" and 1/4". 3/16" was, by far, the most common. 1/8" was used for small letters, and 1/4" was used for flat cutouts in larger sizes, say, 24-inch tall and greater. This could easily be fact-checked if anyone has any old Gemini or Spanjer catalogs from the 60s and 70s.

Nobody drilled and tapped holes in the backs of acrylic letters in the dozens of shops I worked at throughout the 70s and 80s. At least, I never saw anybody doing it.

I spoke to the owner of one of our wholesale suppliers for dimensional letters this morning, as I was checking on the status of an order anyway. His company is 60 years old this month. He said back in the 80's, 70s, etc, with his company there was no flush drilling of any acrylic and glue on blocks were used, and time consuming for making patterns. But he also said this is more likely due to the fact that since letters were still being hand cut, nothing was used over 1/4" thick (as you stated above, not enough room for tapping). He even called me back after finding a Gemini catalog from 1985 and said the thickest flat cut they offered was only 3/16", so his theory holds water.

But his company has been using CNC machines since 1990 and even in that first year, anything 3/8" and up was done with flush drilling/tapping for many of the shops he sold to across the country. Granted that's just one shop & one example, but his reason was with CNC machines drilling/tapping was much more precise for pattern making than arranging glued on stud blocks. He then laughed at Gemini's recent "Perfect Pattern", saying it only took them 30 or so years to catch up I pushed him to join this forum to offer advice so we'll see if he does.

 

[Stacey K]

I think once you explain to them the studs in the mortar will be better than removing gobs of glue off brick someday, they will see it your way. I would be surprised if they didn't..

 

[Zendavor Signs]

The first thing I do is ask such a client: "So, you're anticipating that you will be in business temporarily?"...Then I wait for an answer, giving time for embarrassment to set in. Or sometimes, I'll say, "If you were installing light fixtures, or an awning, would you not drill holes? If I want to be really snarky, I'll say, "What about a fire escape?" You gonna glue that up, too. And who knows, they may have a "good" reason to avoid penetrations in the brick.

At any rate, the industry standard, the "best practice," is concealed stud, screwing the studs into pre-threaded plastic glue blocks. A second, though less desirable method, is drill and tap the plastic itself. Using studs and glue blocks will also allow a small standoff, which can help you compensate for uneven bricks, allowing for an even, cleaner install. Uneven flatness against imperfect bricks is unsightly. Also, and this is just my opinion, a flat flush install looks more amateurish, like the letters were just "slapped" up. And the slight shadow caused by a ⅜ or ½ or ¾-inch standoff mount creates a "crisper-looking" letter edge. Again, my opinion.

There is no reliable adhesive for a flat acrylic-to-masonry mount. The letters will fall. Not all at once, but one at a time. They may break when they hit the ground, and there is an outside chance someone could be struck by a falling letter. Liability could be a selling point for stud mounting, by the way.

I never compromise on this. I don't glue plastic letters to exterior walls. I will pass on the job if the client insists on no penetrations. Then it can become somebody else's problem. What if they were channel letters? Are you going to glue them up, too? (That may even be a code violation). And what about a lighted cabinet? Adhesive only?

If you wish to go to the trouble, locate your studs so they all hit mortar joints. Then a repair of the holes after removal is similar to a tuck point repair. A standard brick, as well as a king-size brick, is typically 2½" high give or take, as I recall. A mortar joint may vary from ⅜" to ⅝", depending on the bricklayer. By and large, professional work by journeymen bricklayers is relatively standardized, unless they've got an apprentice on the job. A journeyman bricklayer is like a robot.

In my almost fifty years in signs, I have easily made more money off flat cutout plastic letters than anything else. Some substrates can be a problem, like shake shingles or coarse aggregate, but the work is never dull. It's always "fun."

Brad in Kansas City

Brad - did you work at Hardin Signs? Just curious. I own a sign shop in Peoria.
BTW - I really appreciate your words of wisdom. As I get older, and am surrounded by more and more newbies, it is refreshing to hear from someone with so much industry knowledge.

 

[Precision]

Have you offered acrylic on foam letters? We do these all the time for interior office signs.

1/32 acrylic faces on 1" foam with matching painted returns.

Only a sign maker will know and understand the difference. Most clients won't.

Much more cost effective as well.

 

[signbrad]

Brad - did you work at Hardin Signs? Just curious. I own a sign shop in Peoria.
BTW - I really appreciate your words of wisdom. As I get older, and am surrounded by more and more newbies, it is refreshing to hear from someone with so much industry knowledge.

Yes, I worked for Bill Hardin for a short time. That's where I joined the union. It was my first decent wage. $15.46 was the scale at the time ('77) for sign painters. The only true union shop I ever worked at—four trades represented: electrical, sheet metal, painters (IBPAT), and laborers. A guy named Paul Berkshire got me hired. Paul was one of the best sign painters I ever knew. A master at shocards and a natural at layout (long before Mike Stevens wrote his book). I called him Mr. Layout. His gold leaf was beautiful. Road trips were a blast with him, he was so funny. Once, on a road trip to Jacksonville, I left the brakes engaged on one of the big Elliots. We went for a while noticing the burning smell, but not until someone yelled from the sidewalk that there was smoke coming from the back did we realize our wheels were burning. Paul never let me forget that but he never told Bill. I don't expect Paul or Bill is still alive.

I also knew Bob Smith before he died (Smith Signs). He was amazing at hand lettering. And I knew the old guys that owned Apex Signs. They started their careers at the tail end of the era when sign painters were still making their own paint, I guess before One Shot was invented. I learned surface gilding and smalt work from them. • I worked with Bruce Overturf (Custom Signs) before he died. He helped me a lot with pricing. He really knew how to make money. He gave me a lucrative job once during a strike, hand lettering the numbers on the room doors of a new hotel (yes, hand painted). He did not want to cross the picket line himself. It was a little scary, but once I got inside the building the strikers didn't bother me. I went in mostly after hours and did the work at night. I just left my kit there till the job was over, so nobody saw me carrying tools in and out of the building. I wasn't in the union yet. • I also knew Jack Dixon and his son (Dixon Signs). And 'Crazyjack' Wills was in Peoria when I was there. I saw Jack pinstripe many cars, and once I watched him put a series of little dots coming out of the tail of the firebird emblem on the passenger side of a Firebird. The customer praised the job and never said a word about the little turds. It seemed like he looked right at them, too. Jack would have wiped them off, of course, but the owner never said a word. • I helped build scores of (advertising) bus benches for Tazewell Sign & Display in Pekin, till one day the IRS came and padlocked the door. The owner, Gary, was a "little" behind on taxes. I lost a box of tools that I had there when they liquidated everything in the building.
Once I was lettering a sign across the parking lot from the city offices downtown. A guy came out and watched me for a while. He finally said, "Nice work. But you didn't pull a permit, did you?" I said, "I need a permit?" He smiled and said, "After you're loaded, come inside and get your permit."

I married a girl from Bartonville and lived in Chillicothe for about seven years. I used to do work for Dynamic Graphics in Pioneer Park. They were a clipart service, something like Shutterstock, but before computers. They sold binders full of black-and-white artwork ready for paste-up. Once, when I did a bunch of shocards for them, the owner complained that out of 60 artists working for him, none could hand letter a shocard. • I did my one and only high job while I was in that part of Illinois, too—the water tower at the BF Goodrich chemical plant in Henry. We worked off the catwalk. It was the most money I ever made in a day. The only real problem was the gallon can my helper and I were using as a urinal. We weren't thinking ahead about what we were going to do with it at the end of the day. The water tower was in the middle of their busy parking lot, so I couldn't just dump it. And I wasn't going to make the climb back up a second time. So we left the can up there, full, on the catwalk, duck-taped to the side of the tower so it wouldn't blow off.

After a few years, I left the Peoria area for a 20-year adventure in Arkansas, where my son was born at a hospital that served turnip greens on the menu. Now I'm in Kansas City, one of the barbecue capitals of the world, but Memphis barbecue is better (oops, did I say that?).

Yes, I worked at Hardin signs.

Brad in Kansas City

 

[Medina Signs]

I think installation - studs into mortar joints would be straight-forward.

Order letters without installed glue pads, order an open pattern - NOT A STUD PATTERN - tape pattern to wall as usual, locate and drill out as many studs as you want in the mortar joints, install and glue the studs insuring that the stand off is very close from stud to stud, and screw on the the combination pads - dry fit for plumb contact with the letter backs by adjusting the pads. Once you are satisfied that all is good, use acrylic glue to pads and affix the letter. All of this is done with the pattern still on the wall.

I think that would work. Anybody have something to add? Please post.

 

[John Miller]

Tell your client that you’ll need to a very aggressive adhesive to hold a letter as heavy as those so he won’t have holes in his wall, he’ll have very difficult to remove adhesive instead. Go to the site, make a pattern of the grout/concrete lines between the bricks, set all your studs to land in the seams between the bricks. Those holes can be filled with the proper color caulk.

 

[Zendavor Signs]

Yes, I worked for Bill Hardin for a short time. That's where I joined the union. It was my first decent wage. $15.46 was the scale at the time ('77) for sign painters. The only true union shop I ever worked at—four trades represented: electrical, sheet metal, painters (IBPAT), and laborers. A guy named Paul Berkshire got me hired. Paul was one of the best sign painters I ever knew. A master at shocards and a natural at layout (long before Mike Stevens wrote his book). I called him Mr. Layout. His gold leaf was beautiful. Road trips were a blast with him, he was so funny. Once, on a road trip to Jacksonville, I left the brakes engaged on one of the big Elliots. We went for a while noticing the burning smell, but not until someone yelled from the sidewalk that there was smoke coming from the back did we realize our wheels were burning. Paul never let me forget that but he never told Bill. I don't expect Paul or Bill is still alive.

I also knew Bob Smith before he died (Smith Signs). He was amazing at hand lettering. And I knew the old guys that owned Apex Signs. They started their careers at the tail end of the era when sign painters were still making their own paint, I guess before One Shot was invented. I learned surface gilding and smalt work from them. • I worked with Bruce Overturf (Custom Signs) before he died. He helped me a lot with pricing. He really knew how to make money. He gave me a lucrative job once during a strike, hand lettering the numbers on the room doors of a new hotel (yes, hand painted). He did not want to cross the picket line himself. It was a little scary, but once I got inside the building the strikers didn't bother me. I went in mostly after hours and did the work at night. I just left my kit there till the job was over, so nobody saw me carrying tools in and out of the building. I wasn't in the union yet. • I also knew Jack Dixon and his son (Dixon Signs). And 'Crazyjack' Wills was in Peoria when I was there. I saw Jack pinstripe many cars, and once I watched him put a series of little dots coming out of the tail of the firebird emblem on the passenger side of a Firebird. The customer praised the job and never said a word about the little turds. It seemed like he looked right at them, too. Jack would have wiped them off, of course, but the owner never said a word. • I helped build scores of (advertising) bus benches for Tazewell Sign & Display in Pekin, till one day the IRS came and padlocked the door. The owner, Gary, was a "little" behind on taxes. I lost a box of tools that I had there when they liquidated everything in the building.
Once I was lettering a sign across the parking lot from the city offices downtown. A guy came out and watched me for a while. He finally said, "Nice work. But you didn't pull a permit, did you?" I said, "I need a permit?" He smiled and said, "After you're loaded, come inside and get your permit."

I married a girl from Bartonville and lived in Chillicothe for about seven years. I used to do work for Dynamic Graphics in Pioneer Park. They were a clipart service, something like Shutterstock, but before computers. They sold binders full of black-and-white artwork ready for paste-up. Once, when I did a bunch of shocards for them, the owner complained that out of 60 artists working for him, none could hand letter a shocard. • I did my one and only high job while I was in that part of Illinois, too—the water tower at the BF Goodrich chemical plant in Henry. We worked off the catwalk. It was the most money I ever made in a day. The only real problem was the gallon can my helper and I were using as a urinal. We weren't thinking ahead about what we were going to do with it at the end of the day. The water tower was in the middle of their busy parking lot, so I couldn't just dump it. And I wasn't going to make the climb back up a second time. So we left the can up there, full, on the catwalk, duck-taped to the side of the tower so it wouldn't blow off.

After a few years, I left the Peoria area for a 20-year adventure in Arkansas, where my son was born at a hospital that served turnip greens on the menu. Now I'm in Kansas City, one of the barbecue capitals of the world, but Memphis barbecue is better (oops, did I say that?).

Yes, I worked at Hardin signs.

Brad in Kansas City

Paul and Bill have both passed away. Paul left to start his own sign company. When Bill passed away, Hardin Signs closed up. Thank you for sharing the memories!