Sandblasted Signs

Why Sandblasted? Why not? Sandblasted signs have been a popular choice for years for subdivision entrances, park wayfinding signs, resort signs, and business signs. Offering a great alternative to vinyl signs sandblasted signs are more of an architectural element that add to the overall design of the location rather than a flat, printed sign. First impressions are important and typically the first thing people see is your sign. Sandblasted signs give you that great first impression and the opportunity to stand out from the start.

What goes in to building a sandblasted sign?

Choose a substrate. Originally the substrate of choice was cedar planks. Cedar is a great sign building material because of it's resistance to bugs and rot. Cedar is easily sandblasted and the resulting signs can last many, many years. The downside is that cedar is a natural product and no matter how much care and skill is used in the fabrication of the cedar sign the wood is still (eventually) subject to decay. Cedar is also becoming harder to come by.

HDU (High Density Urethane) is the most popular choice of substrate for sandblasted signs today and the material we use for the majority of our orders. It is impervious to insects and rot and unaffected by temperature changes. Unlike cedar HDU is readily available. It is very dense, stable, fabricates easily and paints beautifully.

Once the substrate is chosen the sign blank is cut to shape on one of our CNC tables and is prepped for the sandblast mask. Using a vinyl plotter the artwork for the sign is cut from a rubber stencil material called sandblast mask. This mask is then applied to the face of the sign blank. The areas to be sandblasted are removed exposing the raw substrate. The exposed areas are blasted down to depth of 1/4 inch to 3/8 of an inch leaving the graphics and borders raised. This give the sign its dimensional look.

Priming is next. The blasted sign is primed by hand, allowed to dry, sanded, then primed again.
Priming is an important step and it's important that shortcuts are not taken with this step. An even, smooth coat of high build primer will give you the base you need for laying your color in. Once priming is complete, dry, and well sanded, the sign is cleaned of any dust and ready to paint.

1Shot paint is applied to the background of the sign by hand and allowed to dry for 24 hours. We use Spraylat's 1Shot Lettering enamels for all of our sandblasted signs because they dry hard, have a beautiful gloss and smooth finish, and last a very long time. After the background color is completely dry the graphics and borders are painted. Painting the text and graphics of the sign is called "Lettering" the sign. The paint is usually applied with a brush but rather than painting the color on by using brush strokes the color is "set" on the top of the letter with the brush. Because of 1Shot's good flow the paint evens out leaving a smooth finish with little or no brush marks.

After drying for another 24 hours the sign is complete. The sign is carefully wrapped, crated, and shipped.

BRF Signs.com

What does it take to build a thousand table top signs? Time, a Shopbot, and a lot of substrate! When a large coffee retailer, Java City, inquired about having us produce some unique menu boards for their locations, we knew after looking at their artwork this would turn out to be a great project.

The Process:

The challenge was to create a small table top menu board that was highly mobile and could stand on its own or be mounted to a wall. The theme the client was looking for was a road sign theme. Working from the client's artwork we produced an initial prototype and a after a few minor tweaks we were ready to start production.

The Aluminum:

Starting off , we began cutting 20 ft 1"x1" aluminum tubing down to 16" lengths. After the aluminum was cut to length, the metal was placed six at a time into a jig on the Shopbot. Using a 1/4" onsrud router bit, the CNC table cut 36 speedholes into the aluminum posts. A little deburring and polishing with a disc sander and the posts were ready.

The Base:

The base needed to be detachable from the rest of the sign, in case the sign needed to be mounted on a wall. White PVC was cut to make the base of the sign. In each PVC base a 3" metal square tube extended up from the center. This was the mounting point for the sign post.
The sign face:

For the sign face acrylic was the substrate of choice. Once the client recieved the signs, interchangeable static clings(provided by a third party) would be placed onto the face of the sign indicating the daily/weekly special. Acrylic made a great choice for the sign face - it had a clean look and the static clings would stick to it. Using 4'x8' sheets of 3/16 inch thick white acrylic we cut these to shape using the Shopbot. once the acrylic was cut to 8.5" wide by 10.5" tall, we applied the graphics onto the signs using high performance vinyl.

The red text and black border were both made with oracle vinyl. The white squares seen in the picture are the markers for the static clings.. The markers were too small to weed beforehand, so they were applied to the acrylic with a block of vinyl left in place around them, the transfer tape was removed, then the excess vinyl was removed from the sign face leaving the small white markers for the static cling graphics.

The company logo in the top left corner of the sign measured .86 of an inch tall, much too small to be made from vinyl. Using the Gerber edge, we were able to print a sharp clean vector image onto the vinyl.






Roast of the month:

The final part of the menu board was the yellow card holder. The client needed an interchangeable card holder to display their monthly promotions. The "Roast of the Month" card holder was created from 3/16" yellow PVC and 1/8 " clear acrylic. A 2.5" x4" pocket was cut into the PVC. The clear acrylic was then glued to the face of the PVC, leaving the pocket accessible from the right side. Oracle vinyl the same color as the PVC, with a window cut out to match the size of the pocket, was then applied to the clear acrylic. Once it was all assembled you could slide a card into the side of the sign and it was visible through the acrylic on the front.

The Sign:

What did we end up with? After bolting the sign faces to the post and inserting it into the base using a wing nut, the resulting product was a sharp looking sign - and a happy client!

Blue Ridge Fabrication & Design

Custom HDU signs