Hang Time

Like a pimple on Cindy Crawford’s nose, a screw poking its head through an otherwise attractive sign face can prove ruinous. Poor installation techniques can indeed make or break a sign’s overall effect.

For projecting-sign applications, signmakers must therefore carefully consider what mounting and bracketing hardware to use. After all, hardware must not only complement the sign design and building architecture, it must also meet wind-load needs and local code requirements. And local codes regarding signs that overhang pedestrians are often much stricter than sensible engineering would prescribe.

Certainly, combining form with function can be a challenge. But the signmakers whose projecting signage is depicted here have done so with panache.

Retro is in

Everything old is new again. Nowhere is this more evident than in Miller Signs’ (Glen Rock, NJ) own display. To mount his shop’s 30 x 36-in., double-faced, 18-lb. Precision Board high-density urethane sign with mahogany panels, Will Miller used a vintage, ornamental, hand-forged bracket he purchased from an antique shop. He often finds such treasures at antique stores, refinishes them and uses them on signage.

After preparing the bracket, Will lagbolted its top and bottom into wall anchors in the brick. For extra strength and support, he also attached a "kicker" — a metal brace — from the tip of the bracket back into the wall.

Wooden you know

Bill and Liz Long, Sign Legends Inc. (Morristown, TN), faced a unique challenge when installing the Millstone Village sign because the building where it would be mounted was European-style stucco with exposed wooden beams.

To complement the unique architecture, Bill used 12-in. lagbolts to attach a cedar post to one of the building’s wooden beams, which was exposed through the stucco. After bolting the post to the beam, he bolted a 1/4-in.-thick, 4-in.-wide, 30-in.-long steel bracket to the post. He then slid the sign into this bracket. The scrollwork that appears to be holding the sign is simply copper-gilded and painted, carved, high-density urethane, used as decoration.

The village smithy

When installing the Georgetown Rock Shop’s 3 x 4-ft., double-sided, Sign Arts Products Corp.’s Sign Foam