Colorado Restaurant Enjoys Brushwork’s Grain-Fed Wall Sign

Dave Correll, owner of Brushwork Signs (Faribault, MN), has gained a reputation for his sign-design and fabrication prowess. Actively involved in the Walldogs’ traditional-signpainting movement, he spearheaded what was arguably the most compelling project at June’s Pop the Top meet in Arcola, IL (see ST, September 2012, page 72). He recently received an order for a new building sign for The Grainery, a new restaurant and bar in Idalia, CO (population 88 – sa-lute!).

Correll said the project’s design presented a challenge because the photo of the restaurant’s front door, where the sign was installed, was cropped, so he assumed nothing visually obstructed the building’s peak. However, a photo of the whole building, with measurements to determine scale, revealed a decorative beam atop the front gable would’ve created insufficient space for the sign as originally designed. So, he designed the sign’s shape to fit within the defined space.

Correll made the sign from three slabs of 6-mm-thick Dibond® aluminum-composite-material sheet. He lightly sanded them, prepped the faces with 3M’s Primer 94 adhesion promoter and finished with Nova Color’s acrylic-latex paint. To paint the letters, he first plotter-cut the mask with GerberMask material on a Graphtec FC3100-60 cutting plotter. To paint the grain bin, he created a transparency of his sketch and projected it onto the panels’ surfaces to paint it.

To align the pieces, Correll glued small pins to the back of the large, main panels and drilled matching holes into the two smaller pieces. He glued scrap Dibond pieces to the back to properly space the large piece where it overlapped the smaller panels. To more easily transport the 43 x 90-in. sign out of state, he built the sign in pieces that would fit inside a 26 x 92 x 1.5-in. shipping box – a larger crate would’ve incurred higher freight charges.

Correll also built a cool, retro sign for a shop closer to home. Janna Vascomi, who’s operated Bernie’s Grill in Faribault with her husband for 18 years, decided to open a gift store – named, simply, Finally a Gift Store – with her daughter across the street. After having purchased the building, and remodeling it to create an exposed-brick, throwback appearance, they opened their store in mid-October. He built the sign from ¾-in.-thick MDO with ¼-in.-thick, raised-PVC letters and a frame. He fabricated the woman’s visage on Dibond, and installed it with ½-in.-deep standoffs. He coated the sign and letters with acrylic-latex paint, and created the portrait with NovaColor artists’ acrylics.