If you want to add an interesting, established, almost mysterious look to your business; consider an old looking sign. Here are two that were just made, May 2018, for Bath Springs Mercantile in Tennessee. They’re hand painted on an aluminum composite, but made to look like rusted steel. It was a rush job, and on the last day I did an all night shift. The good thing is, when we went to install the signs, a guy named Jerry was there, with a few of his crew, and a nice rough terrain lift vehicle. These guys were great, and the sign was up just before the grand opening ceremony. As an aside, Jerry built the building from wood that he milled nearby. The outside of the building is Cypress wood.
All the painting is done with brushes, except the orange-brown streaks, and the white streaks. The aluminum composite was purchased from Piedmont Plastics in Knoxville Tennessee. This time, I tried two new techniques. The first was to simply alternate between blue paint in the roller and clear, while painting the background. You can make the letters and graphics perfectly distressed, but if the background is too new looking, that’s a loss. The other new thing is distressed edges. Often on a steel sign, the expansion and contraction caused by weather will make the old brittle paint on the edges of the steel to crack and deteriorate sooner. I was very pleased with both these new methods.
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Rat rod lettering on sign, faux finish on sign.