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Often imitated but never outdone, nothing beats the natural beauty of a cedar sign. Start your next piece of artwork off with the best canvas available: A genuine Allwood Sign Blank. Dealer inquiries welcome
4/16/13
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Sign Builder Illustrated // March 2014
your brushes to load up in the heel of the brush, so constant cleaning is required. I solved this problem by having a bunch of brushes. I took milk jugs and cut them off about six inches high. I then put one inch of Rapid Tac’s Rapid Remover in the jug and, using clothespins, clipped the brushes to the side of the jug with the tips suspended up to the metal ferrules. This kept the brushes fresh and ready for lettering. I’d wash the brush out in water before use. When it comes to hand lettering, I’m a snapper at heart. A few layout lines with a Stabilo pencil and I’m ready to crank out some letters. I don’t use patterns; I just make up letter styles as I go, so everything doesn’t look the same. But this bit me in the butt when I painted thirteen rocks for this one family all different with funky colors (Photo 2). The only problem was when the kids all came to get their rocks, Jaden liked Judy’s rock and Russ liked Justin’s rock, etc. So now when I get a request for a bunch of rocks for one family, I use the same font and colors for everyone (Photo 3). I found that not everyone wanted a rock, so at my second show, I also painted old grayed boards, which proved very popular. I have a plentiful supply of old 8-by16-foot boards that I’d gotten from the railroad that runs by my shop. They had a snow fence that ran about three blocks long, and when they were taking it down to toss away when redoing the rails, I asked them if I could have the boards instead. I cut the boards about sixteen to twenty inches long and notched the ends. I then ran them through the router to put a cove on the edges. I could either paint the edge or leave it natural. I seal these with a coat of Helmsman Spar Varnish. When I finished either a rock or a board, I sprayed a seal coat of fast-drying Frog Juice on it. This allowed for delivery in about thirty minutes. After my first show (which lasted five hours), I made $426 dollars in cash and did $343 dollars in credit card sales on my phone. I even had residual sales in commissioned pieces totaling about $1,200. This was so much fun for me that I ended up doing one show a month throughout 11:32 AM the summer, which also really helped in my rehabilitation. signshop.com