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Installing 1500mm letters to cladding – ideas?
Hi,
We have a job:
Supply and fit of 16 characters approximately 1500mm in height. Cut from Reynobond and fitted to steel cladding.
I don’t have the confidence in nylon locators and don’t really want to go through the face of the letters and screw direct. I had considered using 2 right angled aluminium extrusions to interlock and self tap on to each other.
Anyway, one of you guys will probably have a better idea!
Cheers,
Rich
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8 Replies
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I am still waiting to hear any ideas!!! Does anyone know anything about steel locators as a ppose to Nylon locators?
Rich
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Hi Rich, Personally I would drill the face and countersink then cover with a little disc of vinyl. I’m guessing that 1500mm letters will be fitted a fair distance from the viewer? I guarantee that you will not see the fixings from more than about 10 feet 😮
I did some similar to this and didn’t want to drill them so I used the brass locators which I drilled and tapped into 3″ squares of acrylic which I then stuck on the back of the letters with vhb tape (couldn’t tap straight into the letters as the material was only 4mm thick). Looked great for a few months until one day I drove past the building and saw a letter hanging in the breeze 😥 Ended up having to do the whole fitting job again on both sides of the building (took another day and a half) !
You cant afford to have a letter this size drop off on someone but you don’t need to make it more complex and time consuming than you have to either. Best bet as I say is just screw through the face and sleep at night 😉Nigel
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Dibond is very dificult to counter sink, as soon as you get through the ali you can go straight through the plastic, and to do so could compromise its strength. If the letters are 1500 high I would not countersink, I would use colour coded cap screws. I presume you are mounting direct and not as stand offs?
Peter -
Rich, what font are you using for the letters, might seem like a silly question but I have an Idea of how to install but would need to know what font it is to sort out a few details.
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Hi,
nearest I can compare to is ARIEL bold. They are pretty chunky.
R
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quote Peter Normington:Dibond is very dificult to counter sink, as soon as you get through the ali you can go straight through the plastic, and to do so could compromise its strength. If the letters are 1500 high I would not countersink
I’d have to disagree there Peter, I know exactly what you mean but if your using 4mm dibond then countersinking in this way is not going to be a problem for the fixing of letters. There will be very little force trying to pull the letters off the building especially if they are going flat onto the cladding. I have used this method of fixing with a number of signs and as long as the dibond is at least 4mm and you dont countersink too deep there will be no problem (obviously you need sufficient number of fixings per letter as well !)
Nigel
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Try counter sinking screws in Dibond this way:
1)Drill a small pilot hole for the screw.
2)Turn the letter over and with a drill bit roughly the size of the screw head drill through the back layer of aluminium.
3)Now when you screw through the face it will pull itself level with the surface.
Alan
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Nice idea Alan :thumbsup: I’d never have thought of trying that way but it sounds like it would work well.
Good diagram too !Nigel
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