Springer Signcraft

Carved mahogany and WR cedar sign

New Metropets location in Lexington MA needed a new sign! CNC routed and hand carved HDU sign, installed!

New sign on its way out to a shop in Holliston MA! 20" x 40", enamel paints on MDO, doublesided.

Barn Swallow Quilts, handpainted enamel on MDO sign Graphic Design,Advertising

Installed 2 handcarved HDU signs today, along with the posts and bracket. Painted with Oneshot enamels and gilded with 23.75k gold leaf.

Custom carved HDU 8-foot sign installed in Natick MA

We were hired to give this post and panel directory a new life! Originally we were going to repaint it on site, but when we went to do the work the rotten wood posts had given out and it was face down in the mud. We repaired, repainted, re-lettered the plexiglas, replaced the hardware, and added new vinyl-wrapped aluminum posts. Good as new.

This was a fun project! Giant pencil sign. 15' across. The tip and eraser are handcarved HDU, the yellow is bent maxmetal, and the ferrule is an aluminum sheet bent around a curved frame. Letters are HDU. For stationary shop in Natick MA

Smalting this carved sign today!

"Osmalto, or smalt for short, has a technical definition of bein crushed of powdered glass enamel, primarily blue, and has its roots in the jewelry trade. In Cloisonne work it was applied to surface designs sectioned off by thin strips of metaland fired in a kiln until melted. You often see small trinket boxes decorated in this manner.

The popular use in our trade began in the mid 1870's, coinciding with the birth of carved, wooden letters. For maximum durability and visibility, these letters were without a doubt, gold leafed and projected their own elegance.

Requiring a worthy background; it helps to understand the nature and practice of sign construction during this era: Plywood wasn't yet invented, so if the customer desired a mid-range sign, you nailed up wooden framework and covered it with a tin face. This gave a smooth working surface and required a minimum amount of effort. For the highest quality and weather resistant sign boards, wooden planks were doweled together. And to prevent any seams or cracks from ever showing, duck canvas varnish was affixed to the face. After initial sealing and priming, it would be wasted effort to build up its rough texture. And if accomplished, wouldn't appear any nicer than its cheaper, tin covered counterpart. There was considerable cost involved in hand carved and gilded letters so longevity was the main factor. The use of colored glass smallt was a natural conclusion. It not only disguised the rough canvas with minimum effort, but it imparted an elegant, glassy texture with durability and fade resistance bar none. I have seen existing exterior examples on the East Coast still attractive over a century of use. Longevity aside, it's a simple solution to the coarse or boring. The era of beautifully grained, sandblased, wood signs seems to be giving way to prismatic letter faced, computer routed urethane panels with perfectly smooth backgrounds just screaming for attention.

Smalt is divided into two categories: glass and sand. The latter is simply a beach variety traditionally coated with japan colors, (see Atkinson's Sign Painting or Gold Leaf Techniques, 4th Edition.) It has a nice dull to satin sheen to it, but because of it's paint finish, is best reserved for interior use. Although not readily available in its original supplied form, there is an extremely durible epoxy coated version manufactured by the Clifford W. Estes Co. of Lyndhurst, NJ, (an original maker of smalts in the last century), referred to as masonry aggregate and available in many colors.

The most commonly used is glass, for its shiny appearance and light fastness in exterior use. The most widely used is of the coffee ground size and comes in a range of colors: from jet black and ruby red to cobalt blue and dark green. Being almost always used with gilded graphics, the darkest colors are preferred for maximum contrast..."

[credit: Rick Glawson, artisan-signs]

Spent the day carving HDU (high density urethane). The letters will be gilded and the sign will live on a storefront in Medford.