Restorations & Reproductions

This is one of my favorite kinds of jobs: take a classic sign and restore it, mending the wear and tear of years and giving it years of new life.

This two-sided hanging sign was made by an artist friend of the restaurateur when the cafe first opened, in its present location, about 1980. After 25 years the damage from wind and weather was almost fatal—it was a large, heavy sign, and becoming a hazard to pedestrians.

In the left picture can be seen 1) major splits opening in the wood, and 2) pieces actually missing from the built-up relief. This sign was going to need some serious reconstruction.

Right: we see the sign disassembled and lying on my bench. Gluing the pieces back together was the first order of business, and epoxy—not widely known when this sign was built—was the way to go; after reassembly all four surfaces were treated with penetrating epoxy to prevent any further deterioration of the wood (for a portrait of the marriage of epoxy and old wood see my boat page).

Left is the sign with all the clamps in place while the glue cured. At bottom is a detail of the end of the stainless steel (so no rust streaks) threaded rod I ran through the whole width of the sign as a reinforcement: once the nuts on the ends were cinched down this wood was not going to split apart ever again. The nut-holes were then filled and painted.

Not shown is the fancy woodcarving that went into fabricating the missing pieces of the locomotive. These and the other parts of the locomotive were epoxied to the rest of the sign.

At right the steel band at the top has been refastened (with new stainless fasteners, of course) and the whole sign painted to match the original appearance (the only change I made was adding a yellow glow to the lantern). It is now ready to serve another twenty-five years at least.

Reproductions

This is the other kind of job I love best: studying the work of a past master and then reproducing it.

The town of Tomales, 15 miles from Point Reyes, had put out two 10' Santa Clauses every Christmas for as long as residents could remember. No-one knew where they had come from—though rumor had it that a motel had commissioned them many years before but then gone out of business—and they gradually fell into disrepair, one disappearing entirely and the other ending up in a local barn.

Finally one of the local movers-and-shakers contacted me about painting some new ones. Being a stair-builder (see Wayfinding for more on how his business has utilized my services) he could construct the giants—they were assembled of three plywood pieces—but he needed someone to paint them. I was glad to take on the challenge.

Left we see the original, in very sorry repair but still showing enough of the technique the unknown artist used. It was the sort of thing one sees in signs from the thirties and earlier, and I believe it is at least that old.

Right we see the new, of which I did two. They are built of MDO (medium density overlay) so the surface will never crack and check, as did the old ones, and they should be serving Tomales for many years to come.

Detail of Santa's face.

Another restoration job can be seen in my portfolio, here.

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