Sign of the times: Fabricating fresh signage during a pandemic

Barnes MetalCrafters employees Jason and Marty peel the protective skin off the 14 gauge stainless steel. Photos provided by Nick Martin

Signs, Signs, everywhere there are signs, including everything and anything about this crazy year we have been having. I’m sure something else won’t fail to disappoint or scare the bejesus out of us on this fast-paced nightmare rollercoaster. So why not slow things down a bit and let people know who we really are with a sign of our own? And maybe even a couple more sign projects from some of America’s favorite establishments, breweries.

We have been in the new building a little over a year. It was a blank canvas, and we are enjoying every second of making it our new fabricating home. We liked the blank canvas so much that we decided to hold off on putting a sign up. It had to be the right time and the right design for our new building.

There weren’t many complaints about the lack of markings outside. We recently sponsored a hole at a golf tournament. After the tournament, we were given the small sign that was staked in the ground near the tee box. My dad, Tim Martin, jokingly put it out front and said now we have a sign. It’s still out there today.

When it came down to getting serious about a proper sign, my dad gave me a couple sketches of what he had in mind. It basically looked like a slice of pizza extruded with our name on the two long sides. I like pizza, except this slice of pizza was going to be made entirely out of stainless steel. He gave me some sizes to work with and I started drawing in Autodesk Inventor.

Since we had a large 10.75-in.-dia. pipe left over from a job that had been sitting around for nearly 10 years and somehow made the move from the old shop, we decided to use that as our base. We were going to concrete that in the ground at least 4 ft. with a small rebar cage for support.

We wanted to make the entire sign section out of sheet metal so we wouldn't have to saw-cut anything else. Most of the sign was going to be held together with weld nuts, so laser cutting and folding the angled frame would be the best route. All the holes would be located and cut correctly, allowing the portion with our logo to be bolted on correctly. Everyone that saw the drawings or my computer screen thought the sign looked really cool. They also thought it was going to be extremely large. I thought so as well–until the end.

After completion of the design, we had to submit drawings for approval. Of course, you have to go through the red tape. Luckily, it wasn’t very hard to submit some good drawings and take a couple pictures of where the sign was going to go on the property.

Approval seemed like eternity, but my dad walked through the office a couple weeks later and told me to process the sign. I knew it was going to go quick. Before long all the 3/16-in. stainless was cut and folded, waiting to get welded up. The rest of the sign was 14-ga. stainless, and we worked that in with a few other orders.

To get the sign to pop with some color, we decided to use studs on the back of the main sign to hold the powder-coated red and blue backing plates. The main portion would be a No. 3 finish that would surely be enough to make you grab a sun visor faster than a ninja when driving past the shop. When we got everything put together, it looked really nice.

For the install, we had a local company, Watson Electric, locate and drill the hole for our sign pole. They put our rebar cage in place and got the concrete poured as well. When I designed the mounting plate, I laser-cut a pie shape to help clock the sign toward the road. It made it pretty easy for the guys. If they were off a little, that would be OK. I also did a curved slot on the top portion of the sign so we could get it perfectly to our liking. When you are pointing a large piece of pizza, you need to point it correctly.

Nick Martin describes the new Barnes MetalCrafters sign "like a slice of pizza extruded with our name on the two long sides."

The next day we decided to mount the sign to the pole. This was a momentous task, and we pretty much shut the shop down to do this. We threw the sign in the back of the shop truck and backed it up to the pole. We slid it right off the back of the truck and held it in place while we pushed some bolts through the holes. We left the back portion of the sign off to gain access to all the holes. After all the bolts were snugged, we put the back portion of the sign in place. Of course, we were short one bolt and we jokingly said it would stay like that forever. My dad wasn’t having that and sent out Angie to retrieve the “Private Ryan” bolt of our sign.

After everything was buttoned up, the sign didn’t seem as large with a large building in the background. It was clean and shiny. Everyone was happy.

Brewery Signage

I never want to be considered a sign shop, but we do have the capabilities to make some pretty cool creations. I guess when you work on something like that your nose starts to itch and you start to get some more trickle-down orders.

My dad sells at a local farmer market in downtown New Bern, N.C., and often finishes his day with a cold draft beer at Brewery 99. If you are ever in the area, you need to give this brewery a go. They staff are down- to-earth folks, and the brewery has a great atmosphere. Pete Frye is the owner and adds an eclectic touch to everything he does. He asked my dad if he could make a metal pallet so he could mount his Brewery 99 sign and move it around with his dinosaur forklift. We were up to the challenge.

I was given a couple sketches and designed the pallet in Autodesk Inventor. One tricky part of the sign was to add foldable arms to give the sign stability and make the footprint larger so it would not fall over. The long portion of the pallet was constructed of 4x4 square tubing. We ended up making the foldable arms out of the same material and put them on a hinge. They would be held in place by a pin that would not allow the arms to fold up. We decided to hold the pins in place by a small lanyard so they wouldn’t get legs and walk away.

We sent Pete a drawing and he was excited to get it going. Material and the pins were ordered. To top off the design, we were going to add a solar panel with some uplighting. This was going to look pretty sweet. We laser cut the top portion out of 3/16-in. steel and the side leg brackets out of ¼-in. We put some heavy-duty hinges on the legs, which proved to work out pretty well. There was a little wiggle room when hinged over in case the ground wasn’t completely level.

After everything was put together, we powder-coated the pallet black. This would match Pete’s sign and the overall black-and-white theme of his brewery. My dad and I delivered the pallet to his brewery and he had a couple helpers on hand to help place the sign on the pallet. Pete was ecstatic, to say the least. He said, “This is awesome! That’s my bear right there!”

The bear is in reference to New Bern’s mascot and several bear statues around town. Each one has a different theme painted on it. After standing back and admiring Pete’s pallet, we thought it looked like a bear rug with all four paws spread out. My dad ended up coming back the next day to help Pete wire up the deep-cycle battery with the uplights. The sign is surely an eye-catcher after the sun goes down. Be on the lookout in downtown New Bern. Pete said he would park the sign around downtown in parking spots and put flyers to notify customers on where their next pint should be enjoyed.

About a half-mile down the road is another up-and-coming brewery called Freshwater Beer Co. We got to know the owners Brandon and Tia while playing adult kickball. The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down their opening plans, but they are in no hurry. Currently it is nearly impossible to have a bar open and operating in North Carolina. Besides, they have some more renovating to do before pouring the first beer.

The building they are renovating used to be an old automobile repair facility that was built in the ‘50s. Brandon, a contractor by trade, was the perfect match for modernizing the downtown building.

Golf tournament sponsorship sign that was jokingly used as a business sign for a few months before the proper sign was finished.

He approached us about making some laser-cut signs. We were given some good art files to work with, and we cut out some 18-in. circles so they could have an idea of what they would look like. I had to add some tabs to some of the letters so they could be held in place and not be hollow. I honestly forgot to tab one of the letters in place, so we had to cut another. So if you are ever there, be on the lookout for my screw-up. Maybe you won’t notice after a couple brews.

They liked the samples enough to ask us to do the rest of their signs. They wanted a 48- by 60-in. hanging sign to say “Established in 2020.”

Like I said, we aren’t a sign shop, but you have to fill the voids when needed. I like having our name behind permanent additions even if someone else's name is on the sign. If we had to do our sign over again, I think we would add more bolts around the exterior to give it more of an old-school riveted look. As far as our sign work with the breweries, I wouldn’t change a thing – except for maybe putting a cold one in my hand at the end of a long workday.

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