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What came first, the chicken or the egg........................ ??

netsol

Premium Subscriber
The old signs were not thrown away. They were taken down to be refurbished and put back up.:)
Exactly what i was thinking.
Worst case, it was an exact part for part replacement of ONLY THE BAD PARTS (all of them!)

Very much like the repair of my deck, 3 years ago.
 

rjssigns

Active Member
Do they check the bends? I think that is where you lose thickness in assemblies.
Nope, just the straight parts. Bends will suffer but that is due to cheap equipment. Top drawer stuff is all mandrel bent.

Depending on the cert they will check various places. My cage cert only required one diameter of tubing with a specific wall thickness.(1.625"/0.134"wall DOM) Dash bar, door bars and main hoop were checked on mine for an 8.50 second tag. When you get into 25.xxx certs lots of places get checked since there are several different diameters/wall thicknesses of tubing.

Safety is paramount becuase of the insane speeds they're running. Couple weeks ago I watched the World Cup Finals. Young guy in a Mustang with a full steel body ran 254 and change. Full freakin' steel body with swinging doors is worth repeating in a class full of carbon bodied fly weight vehicles. Not so long ago that kind of mile an hour was the domain of alcohol funny cars not something you could drive on the street.

Shortly after that I witnessed a 2JZ powered Lexus run 260+mph. Even the announcer was silent after that.

Yeah, I geek out over this stuff and wish I had the money to go that fast. One of those vehicles used with a freshened drivetrain starts at a quarter million dollars.:oops:
 

Rocco G

New Member
The need for sealed plans is just about universal anymore. No town wants to take the responsibility for "approving" anything these days. I send drawings out to engineers every week, often several times a week. In NJ (we cover NJ, PA and DE), you HAVE to get sealed plans for everything outside. I've had to get sealed plans for a set of styrofoam letters pin mounted to the cash-wrap wall in a store, inside a mall. The inspector said that if he could see if from the mall common area it counted and needed a permit/plans.

Simple solution for the steel thickness, drill a small hole (1/4" or so) in the steel poles. Do it at the top if you are worried about damaging the integrity of the pole. We do a lot of surveys/installations for the big sign companies and it's common practice. Hand holes are often cut in the bottom of steel poles to allow the wires to run down inside so a tiny hole won't damage the pole.

For the engineering seal, good engineers will allow you to install a sign that is the same size/height/etc. as was there before. Hopefully you have a relationship with your regular engineering firm. We get sealed plans weekly and so our firm knows that we don't F around. However, the engineer will want proof (preferably drawings but even photos) of what was there before. I have one engineer that actually likes old footings because he knows that they have stood the test of time. We've done this quite a few times before. Now a cantilever installation may be another matter since it's more than just the concrete in the ground. All that support steel, guy wires, etc. have been out in the elements for who knows how long.

Or dig down on one side of the footing and find out for sure how deep it is. Get your young/strong helper to go out and get some exercise. In PA is should be at least 42" deep which is the frost line in the Philly area. Your engineer (or the building inspector) will have this figure for your particular area.

Worst case, get someone with a backhoe to pull out the footings and install new. If they are renovating the building, the sign work is probably a small fraction of their spending. Of course they probably allowed 37 cents for signs since "it's only a sign".

About the code, well that often has changed since the signs were installed originally. Just call the township zoning officer and ask. Many towns now have their code on line. One of my pet peeves is when you call and they say "it's in the code, look it up". Come on, it's your job to answer zoning questions!!!
 
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