January 1999 Joe Rees and Dick Clark of Cape Craft Signs win the Sign of the Month for January. You guys do beautiful work! below is a description of the sign by Joe Rees.... Client: The Stewed Tomato Restaurant. Rt. 28 (Main Street) Harwich Village, MA (on Cape Cod). The sign this replaced was pretty dismal; about half this size, amateurely made and weather ravaged, on an equally nondescript (ugly) angle iron & pipe bracket. The tomato art was existing and begging to be given a proper treatment. Fabrication: Cape Craft Signs. P.O. Box 793 Orleans MA 508-240-1065 Design & Pictorial Decoration: Joe Rees Carving and Fabrication: Dick Clark Sign dim; 32"x32" center panel with 23"x48" Oval. The rectangular center panel is 2 layers of 3/4" MDO epoxeed together, Oval is 3/4" 18lb density HDU (Signfoam II brand). What makes this sign cool is that we "Gorilla" glued 2 more layers of 3/4" foam between the faces at the ends of the ovals, to give it a seamless wrap-around effect. The MDO and foam sections were finished as separate pieces and assembled at the last step just before installation. Lettering on the Maroon MDO panel is high performance "Imitation Gold" colored vinyl. Letters and inset border on HDU oval are hand carved and gilded. The tomato/bowl/spoon is a 3/4" thick foam appliqué carved in bas-relief. Iron bracket was subcontracted to a local metal shop. Paint finish on the Oval was subbed out to a body shop (Recon Auto Restoration, Orleans, MA) before the carving was done. We supplied it to them with only one coat of Block-Out type alkyd primer applied. They buried it in a heavy coat of catalyzed epoxee primer and gave it back to us for all the finish sanding. We returned it very smooth and they let us use their spray booth to apply the final color coat. They helped me mix the appropriate concoctions of paints, hardeners and flattening agent for the black and purple blend, and I actually sprayed the two-color final finish myself. Did it pretty well too:). The plan was to have a just off-gloss finish and it worked out just super. A computer cut, vinyl mask was applied for the lettering & border before the carving was done. This made the priming. sizing & gilding inside the carved areas very simple and clean. The tomato appliqués were finished in lettering enamels and attached with West Systems Epoxee. The massive appearance of the oval is deceptive as it only weighed about 12 lbs fully finished. The double-thick MDO rectangle was much heavier at about 40 lbs. Still all in all a pretty light sign. The finished sections were fitted together and final attachment was made with silicone and 4 galvanized deck screws toe nailed through the oval into the MDO center paned. Dick and I are very proud of the finished product, as is the client. The new sign has created quite a stir in the village. Everyone loves it. His business has zoomed. People are sucked right in off the street! Cape Cod is a small place and the sign has become pretty much of a landmark. When people ask us what work we've done, we mention "Stewed Tomato" and the conversation is over real quick. Cape Craft Signs has only been in existence since June this year (1998). Having signs like this out there selling for us is going to really pay off in '99. Happy New Year, Dick Clark & Joe Rees to look at more of their great sign art click below... Cape Craft Signs . If you would like to enter your sign for "Sign of the Month", simply e-mail Mark Fair Signs attach a .jpeg or .gif image to your e-mail document. Photo must be a good one. Try to keep file size limited to 40KB. If you win, I will notify you by e-mail. Just because I don't select your sign as "Sign of the Month" does not mean you don't have a great sign. Try again. Monthly Winners will be posted by the 10th. of each month.
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Thanks, Steve & Barb Shortreed "The Letterhead Website"
