Peak Sports

This sign project took place in June and July of 2001. Here it is completed, as viewed from the rooftop.

These swooshes were all nested together in a bazaar configuration to be maximized from a 4' x 8' piece of 1.5" thick HDU (also known by brand as SignFoam, and Precision Board). They were cut out on a cnc router. I glued 2 together to end up with 3" thick pieces.

I don't hand letter much anymore, so I don't work vertically much either. My adjustable 4' x 10' easel in the background has become clogged with a hodge podge of old signs and such. My own personal museum.  In the middleground lies the proof that I'm secretly doing work for Nike.

Stacks of wet paint. Every time 8' of length fills up, I go up another layer.

Ah; the corner of my workbench where I process and mix paint. To the right is a ring stand that came out of the OSU Chemistry Dept. It's adjustable up & down and is perfect for holding a paint strainer. The whacked sculpture to the left is the result of years of stacking skins of paint which show up once a can of paint is half used. I'm doing my part to keep them out of the landfill. These skins are usually quite thin. The underside is wet enamel which provides the slow bonding. As I squish it into place, a trickle may run down the side. The skins are aligned to to outside edge. It started as 2 plywood cutouts in the shape of a guitar pick, held together with a 2" round steel pipe.

Background ovals of 1/2" MDO plywood with fresh black paint drying.

Foreground pieces of an aluminum sandwiched substrate. Two brands are 'DiBond' and 'Alupanel'. They've been CNC router cut and freshly painted black.

From all my years of playing ultimate frisbee, I've acquired a large collection of discs that hang nearby. I usually grab one when I've got lots of small bits to assemble. This keeps the small parts from becoming lost, and allows me to efficiently scoot them along. 

Under the sheet of copper is the 1/2" MDO ply, behind that is a threaded T-nut at every hole. The T-nut receives a length of threaded aluminum. The small black rubber washer separates the sharp edge of the copper tubing, which is a spacer. It hopefully keeps the clear coat from starting to peel. The plastic flange is a base to adhere the letters onto. Gooey adhesive travels through those holes and mushrooms out on the backside.

Each sheet of copper was textured with a coarse grit sanding disc on my mini-grinder. The sheet was taped down to my work table. I ran 2 tape measures down the length off my work table and taped them in place; one at the top and one at the bottom. Then, in a perpendicular direction, clamped a straight edge every 2" for a guide and methodically sanded the copper. The vertical stripes appear wavy & corrugated. The light that is reflected dances as your viewing angle changes, creating a wonderful effect. The copper then received a coat of clear to keep it from oxidizing.

The dancing light from the copper is enhanced with shadow play and depth from the raised foreground graphics.

Part of designing the sign is also designing the bracket. I had all the steel bracket parts laser cut and supplied Larry Desaulniers a kit with plans, ready to weld. Larry is the general manager at Peak Sports and is a pretty dang good jack of many trades. This saved Peak on costs. I picked up the bracket and trucked it out to Tim Luke at Willamette Powder Fab to have it coated in black. The two halves of the sign are bolted together through the bracket. These bolts are hidden under the floating outer oval of the logo.

Designing the fab files for this project took some focus. The lighter of the two blue swooshes, both at the top of each sign face, are back to back. So the two faces are mirrored; the outer perimeter paths anyway. The logo reads left to right on both sides, so it is not mirrored. The black plywood panels outline the blue swooshes by a 1/2". Where the two swooshes come together the plywood has sharp indents. It is not a symmetrical oval. At this same place, the floating inside panel has points (outdents). It is not symmetrical either. All of the fastening holes were part of the cnc fab files. Keeping track of left and right, top and bottom, front and back, kept me on my toes. Also the bolting pattern through the steel frame was asymmetrical to dodge the logo. Every subtle design change meant extensive reworks & alignments of fastening holes. It was puzzling to keep track of top and bottom parts during production, and again front and back parts during assembly. Dizzy yet?

Who dressed the guy on the left!? On the right is Michael Butler from Sprick Roofing, assisting with the crane operations.

Jason Smoker used to work at Peak and remains part of the Peak family. This is his forklift. He is a legend in the local mt. bike community and rides with my friend Trevor Norland. Trevor wins  regional sanctioned pro class mt. bike races, one after another. I don't know much about Jason, I just hear these crazy stories.

Up, up, and away.

Deja vu: fish out of water. Back when Keiko, the famous killer whale from the movie 'Free Willy', was moved to the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, I did a rush job, lettering the large main boom on the crane that hoisted Keiko. The company was Continental Crane. They knew the images of their crane would be broadcast world wide in news stories. It was a massive crane and the letters were much larger than one would think. When finished, the client gave me a stuffed orca as a perk for meeting the tight deadline.

A man's a fool without the right tool. Ron Dickinson is a foreman at Sprick Roofing and he should have a stool. He is certified to operate their crane and has magic fingers. Here he is, working hard.

Mike and I are maneuvering the beast into place.

Dave Barton used to wrench in Peak's bike shop and ride big downhill mt bikes. Now he prefers motorized dirt bikes. This install happened during his transition into self employment. He is now a licensed contractor. Note the lack of adequate railing on the board he's surfing. Long ago when we did this job, OSHA didn't yet exist.

My close friend Nathan Potter could not miss out on the fun. In classic Nathan style, I was bumped off the podium, relinquished to direct from the sidelines.

The lower bolts went in this crawl space up in the attic. Dave, working from the outside, followed the holes in the bracket and drilled through the bricks on each side of the building corner. Larry was in this space communicating to me, up on the roof, with a 2-way radio. There were two large rectangular backing plates, of 1/4" steel plate, which he had to place the bolts through. These plates spread the load out over a larger area of multiple bricks. The plates and bolts were sized and specified from an engineer. Approval of the sign permit for this project required stamped engineering. This photo was taken for preliminary design work and consultation.

The upper bolts came through the parapet up on the roof. Each backing plate had an eye bolt with cable that joined together to anchor into this short section of exposed beam. This was not specified by the engineer, but presented itself as easy additional work. It adds a huge safety net, since the upper bolts endure the most force.

Here's Nathan again, with his big long monkey arms holding the dummy end of the bolts for me.