right. I was very satisfied with the tightness of the fit of the four pans because even small gaps look ugly from the ground—and we do not do ugly! The aluminum pans were attached to the horizontal angles with pop-rivets— eight across the top and bottom of each pan. Next we applied 3M VHB tape (the red liner tape) to the backs of each freshly painted letter. Using a layout guide, I installed the logo pieces and each letter horizontally left to right across the pan faces. This process took less than ten minutes. After a quick cleaning of the four pan faces with Windex® and a half roll of paper towels, we were done with this sign. The second sign on our list at this location was an older posts-and-panel
type, with faces measuring 5-by-10 feet. These faces were so old that we could not remove the pans for repainting. So we did the next best thing—we recovered the faces with new, slightly larger aluminum pans. Back at the metal shop, we sheared the white .080-inch aluminum sheets and bent the 90-degree edges on three sides at one-inch wide. The bottom edge of each pan face was left straight and attached to the existing faces with 3M VHB tape. Now that we had some smooth and clean aluminum faces to work with, we adhered our pattern to the faces and installed the freshly painted acrylic letters—once again with 3M VHB tape. The only task left to do was to paint the legs of the sign, which was the final
Installing the new pan-formed faces to both sides of the Univar yard sign.
Peeling the covering from the VHB tape attached to the back of each letter.
Adhering the painted plex letters to the sign face.
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December 2013 // Sign Builder Illustrated
21