AQUA - seafood restaurant & bar

Completed

The letters are cut out and/or carved in 3D on a cnc router. You can see each path of the router bit showing up like a topo map. They very much resemble sandblasted wood. The material is high density urethane foam (HDU) and started at 4' x 8' x 2" thick. Morris Coville at HyTek Plastics and I designed the 3D dimensions on his software.

The material is a very hard foam. It shapes and sands very easy, much like a surf board. No matter how much you sand it, you still have coarse open bubbles. The manufacturer makes a thick (like yogurt) high build water based primer. After 2 coats you can wet sand and get a very smooth surface. The letter above is ready for a base coat of blue-green enamel.

Here's my wife and best shop assistant, Jana, brushing on paint. Look at how fast she goes.

A row of letters drying. They get lightly sanded again to remove micro garbage in the paint surface that seems to kinda just fall out of the sky.

5 hues of blue-green mixed and ready to be sprayed on.

I shot the middle shade above (3rd) over the whole letter. Then shot the 2nd and 4th from opposing diagonals at about a 45 degree angle. Last, I shot the 1st and 5th from opposing diagonals, spraying straight sideways (horizontal).

All the white parts were cnc router cut from a 3mm sheet of 'Alupanel', a pre-finished aluminum clad plastic core panel. I'm adhering the letters to the black background with 3M VHB tape and silicone. Hopefully one holds if the other fails.

A disposable low tack stencil for spacing the letters is applied. I give the letters a 1/10" outline and cut just the outline on my plotter. Nice dog pile of letters ready to go on.

No need to do the letter centers.

The letters are big and heavy enough that I'm using mechanical fasteners along with adhesive. There's a plastic drywall anchor screwed into the back of the letter, an extra one to the left showing what it is, and a stainless screw that comes in from behind the 2 background layers.

Very cool paint overspray left over on my 2x4 drying rack. This ain't Photoshop. I love it!!

Beto (Robert Sattell) is awesome! He's helped me on many installs. When I work with him, I get to hold the dummy end. This is his wonderful scaffold.

A bit of a close up. Notice the diagonal gradiants. The shwoosh on the A's and Q's is higher than the rest so as to appear to cross over the top of the down stroke on the A.

Two of these were made, one for each side of the corner. The next fun thing is the opposing diagonal gradients. The light source for the left sign is top left; for the right sign is top right. It makes for a subtle realism.

Each year the Downtown Corvallis Association gives out Design Awards at the last DCA After Hours which takes place in December. For the year 2008, Aqua won for the Exterior Signage category. Yeehaw!!

There's a photo of this job in the design gallery at Letterhead Fonts.

Mod Pod

 Here's the completed sign, lit up at night. It sits up on a rigid awning, above the sidewalk.

The acrylic letters push through a stainless border and are illuminated with 3 strips of waterproof LED's.

All the parts of the sign are connected to this piece of 1/4" plate aluminum. It holds it all together. It measures 8' wide by about 3' tall. This and the stainless outlines of the letters were cut out on a cnc laser machine. In this photo I've been random orbit sanding with various grits and am finishing the last course with a green abrasive scrubber stuck to the sander.

I've multiplied out their logo to create a wallpaper pattern of it. Then cut it from thin light blue sandblast mask on my plotter.

Tim Foley is an excellant metalsmith and artist. He does my welding and helps with metal fab as needed. Here he's sandblasting the design into the aluminum. He welded all the 2" aluminum angle on this project.

After blasting, I trucked all the aluminum parts up to Portland to have them anodized clear. Nobody local could handle a piece that large.

The effect is gorgeous. It shimmers and makes for some very sexy light play.

                                                   
Here's a 2" welded aluminum frame that is bolted to the face plate. These bolts will be the only visible fasteners from the front. Temporarily clamped to this frame are 2 right angle support brackets. Inside the frame is a 1" x 8" x 1" 'C' shaped pan sidewall that holds an aluminum sheet backing that holds the 3 strips of LED's.

This is my good friend Dan Johnson (cousin Dan) from Advanced Environmental Systems. He's an HVAC guru and licensed to do low voltage electrical work. He's wiring the LED's to the power supply. He's one of my skiing buddies and likes to go really fast.

Looking through the cutouts to my easel in the background. Around the perimeter of the cutouts you can see the pop rivets that attach the sides of the aluminum cabinet. The pilot holes for these were placed in my design software and pierced with the cnc laser. When finished they will be hidden with the stainless trim around the letters.

Here's the cnc router I use at HyTek Plastics. It will handle 5' x 10' material. I sure wish it was mine. The owner and programmer's name is Morris Coville. He pretty much does perfect work for me.

It's cutting out the white acrylic letters. They are 3/8" thick. The sides are cut 1/4" down with a 1/2" wide flange that is 1/8" thick.

This flange is adhered to the stainless outline with silicone. Note the small 'islands' of stainless that go inside the O and D. Care must be taken that they don't get mixed up with the trash. Translucent red vinyl is cut on my plotter and 'stickered' to the white letters.

Silicone adheres the stainless to the aluminum back. There's also a stainless tab that goes in that aluminum slot. This physical attachment gives great peace of mind.

The backside.

Here's Paul Buchheit (father and husband of the owners) and myself performing the install.

Sweet installation!!  The 2 aluminum 'C' channel lengths are bolted to the structural members inside the marquee. The 2 support brackets adjust back and forth, left and right. The rectangular frame that is pre-bolted to the sign face adjusts up and down between the brackets. We had all connections clamped together while we made sure we were happy with the placement. Then we drilled and bolted away.

The finished storefront. There is aluminum diamond plate in a layer behind the sign face that relates to the front door and the kick plates inside the door alcove. There is a small 'blade' sign under the marquee. It was fabricated along with this project. There is also vinyl graphics banding the lower windows for pedestrians that never look up.

American Dream background panels

I love gradients. I love blending colors. You'll see a lot of blended color in my work, done with spray guns, brushes, rollers, squeegees, any tool I can conjure to apply paint; here being a sponge. I'm working on a 'lazy susan' to get double radial gradient. Notice the Dixie cups with stepped shades of paint. I'm blending each cup to the next, white all the way to the darkest green. After the first layer is dry, I apply a vinyl paint mask of concentric circles, designed on the computer and cut on the plotter. Next using the same paint, repeat the same steps while slightly shifting the gradient. Unmask and voila. 

2 opposing dual radial gradient sponge blends.