Glazing Signs

One of our favourite painting techniques is know as “glazing.” Applying a glaze (or multiple glazes) adds depth and richness to a painted surface.

Our basic glaze recipe is straightforward — 50% untinted “clear” or “deep” paint base and 50% tinted paint. Once you have your glaze mixed, thoroughly brush the glaze onto your piece and immediately wipe most of it off with a clean rag. The glaze will stay in the corners and textured areas of your piece. Note that this glazing technique works best on textured surfaces.

Here is a quick video tutorial from a few years ago showing our basic glazing technique.

Glass Hive

The Glass Hive Studio is a husband and wife duo — he is a bee keeper and she is a glass artist. They came to us with a logo but it needed a reworking to make it suitable for a head turning sign. Happily, they loved our first concept design.

Once we received approval and a deposit we are ready to begin the sign. We create the bulk of the vector file for the sign’s face in Illustrator with the exception of the outlines and borders which are done in EnRoute.

The various reliefs are each generated separately and then merged together. The lettering is also built as a separate layer to be routed separately. These two pieces will be painted and then glued together. A second pair will be routed for the back side of the sign.

The lettering is built in a bevelled style on a slight arc.

As is our custom, we routed the sign from 30 lbs. Precision Board high density urethane (HDU). By design, the entire sign fits within a full 4' x 8' sheet of material.

While the CNC router works away we set about fabricating the lower steel structure for the sign. Once the sign is routed we will bend a piece of 1.5" x 1.5" square tubing and weld it onto the top, wrapping it around the sign.

Next, we cover the pencil rod frame with expanded metal lath cover everything with a rough coat of sculpting.

After the thin rough coat of sculpting epoxy has cured (creating a solid base to work on) we start the second finished layer. To simulate tree bark we press on a layer of sculpt and, using crumpled heavy duty tinfoil, we stamp in the bark’s texture. Lastly, we use a sharpened stick to draw lines, delineating sections of bark. (we make sure to wet our tools with a little water to prevent them from sticking.)

Next we will glue the front and back sides of the routed sign together yesterday with vinyl covered Lexan sandwiched between the two layers. We will also laminate steel rods inside the frame (we will weld these to the structure later). Finally, we use an air powered die grinder to sculpt the edges of the sign.

Now it its time to bend a piece of steel tubing to shape and welded everything together. Once the rest of the sculpting epoxy is finished we will be ready for paint. As you can see in the pictures, we pre-painted the areas of the sign that were contact with the Lexan.

Once finished this double sided sign stands a hair over eight feet tall. We are pleased with the result, in particular, I like how the cool colours of the letters plays against the warmer background.

Tying Expanded Metal Lath By Hand

Whether we are sculpting concrete or epoxy, our projects often start with a welded steel “pencil rod” structure covered in expanded metal lath. Attaching this expanded metal lath (mesh) is important (if inglorious) work.

We attach the mesh with rebar tie wire using a pair of side cutters — we call them “nippers” in our shop.

We form a loop with the rebar tie wire and push it through the mesh, then we pull the short end around a piece of pencil rod and back through the mesh again.

Using nippers, we grabbed the tie wire, twist to tighten it and cut it off — all in one smooth motion. It takes practice to get good and more practice to get fast!. The key is to pull the tie wire tight with your left hand and grip it very close to the pencil rod with the nippers.

When you twist, everything should snug up after only a bit more than 90 degrees — then you can cut it off. (Easier said than done, but practice makes progress.) Keep the Bandaids handy as the mesh, and tie wire, and pencil rod are all very sharp! Ask me how I know :)

If you look close you can see the neat rebar wire tie in the center of the picture above. You want to put enough of these ties on your piece to keep the mesh secure, but no more than that or you will be wasting effort (and Bandaids).