Striking Sign Provides Stylish Entrance for Kentucky Home

A business manager or owner’s understanding that sizable, well-designed, durable signage is, of course, an important step in building a brand and growing business. When private homeowners decide to invest in signage that reflects well on their domicile, and without the prospect of a tangible return on investment (unless, perhaps, they one day sell the home, and even then it’s no guarantee that prospective buyers will appreciate the sign), it’s an even stronger indicator of pride of place.

Josh Brock, a past customer of Jeff Rowland, the owner of Hygh Octane Graphics (Maineville, OH) – for whom Rowland had designed a bar’s shuttle-bus vehicle wrap that won a First Place award in the 2013 Vehicle Graphics Contest  – asked him to design a sign for Celladora, his Williamsburg, KY home.

“Most of my designs have been for wraps,” Rowland, who’s worked in the sign business for 22 years and operated his own firm for the past three, said. “I found that I enjoyed them, and excelled at designing them. However, I also enjoyed this opportunity to leave my comfort zone and design something a bit different. It was a challenge to create a sign that appears rustic, clean and artistic.”

Rowland designed the sign using CorelDRAW® X7 software, and he entrusted fabrication to Lexington-based Spurr Services LLC, which fabricates metal signage, as well as tables, railings and other industrial and home décor. Rowland said he, Brock and Spurr’s owner, Andrew Spurr, collaborated with material choices: Brock fabricated the stone pillars that support the sign himself, and sections of trees he’d removed from his property and stripped connect the pillars and the arching sign.

Spurr received the design as a .DXF file, which his shop checked over using Rhinoceros 5 3-D fabrication software. Next, they imported the file into SheetCAM metal-fabrication software to process the file in router-ready G-code. Spurr Services fashioned the sign with a 4 x 8-ft. Trucut CNC plasma cutter with a Mach 3 CNC controller using 0.125-in.-thick, 3003 alloy aluminum and ¼-in.-thick, hot-rolled mild steel. The shop also welding mounting extensions with a Miller 252 MIG welder, and handled final assembly and detail work with a Metabo angle grinder, DeWalt impact gun and Snap-On hand tools. S-hooks, which were built in-house, suspend the HOB letters. They finished by cleaning the sign’s surface with a degreaser.

“The customer wanted materials left bare, so the steel could age naturally,” Spurr said. “Aluminum spacers separate the steel and prevent rust transfer, and steel hardware offsets the tone and will break up the eventually rusty appearance.”

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Spurr said making sure the welded mounts would function correctly, without detracting from the 12-ft.-wide sign’s appearance, presented the primary challenge.