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Flat-cut letter fixing to wall
Hi, as the title, customer requires 3mm composite letters to fit to a flat red brick wall. They don’t necessarily need to be flush with the brickwork, but fairly close. How would you suggest? I don’t know if VHB tape would be up to the job, as I have never used it. Are there fixings which are fairly small in height? or is it best to fix to a piece of perspex, and fit that?
My experiences with this type of thing, as you can tell, are fairly limited!
Thanks for any advice you can give
Lorraine
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12 Replies
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How large are the letters?
I would of thought standard locators ( 2 part spacer ) – these come in 3 sizes used depending on size of letter.
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Hi Tim, sorry, should have said, letter height on caps is 150mm, plus lower case.
I have got high spacers, didn’t know if they came really small.Thanks
Lorraine -
Same as Tim says, standard locator’s but will depend on the letter stroke. Don’t use an acrylic rail unless you absolutely have to, even if you use a thin clear rail you Will be able to see it & they look horrible. Well I think they do anyway. :lol1:
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Standard small locators or get on rods and glue them in. Handy if wall uneven.
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I think the smallest diameter locators are 8mm so check the stroke width of the letters.
The main problem with brickwork is drilling the holes in exactly the right place as edges of bricks and the uneven surface make the drill move off the spot. -
Thanks everyone, will take it all into consideration. Peter, thanks for both bits of advice, neither had I thought of.
Cheers
Lorraine -
Hi Lorraine
how about sticking them to a sheet of clear acrylic then fitting that to the wall? should look nice and less work,
just a thought -
one other option is to use stainless steel studs , you can get those down to about 5 mm,
regarding the post about drilling i dont know 3mm stud and a 4 mm hole and some mastic, dont need to be the accuract 🙂
personally id just stick them to a peice of clear plastic as Cheryl said
regards
stu -
Peter is right; drilling through a template onto a brick wall can be a nightmare. If that’s the route you go down you can cut ‘Bighead Locators’ down to about 12mm wide, glue them on and fit M5 studding. If you draw up a brick grid in Signlab you can, with a bit of work, sort out where the holes in the wall need to go but it rarely goes entirely right. If the template is not too big making out of something like thin MDF can help to prevent the wandering drill, although you’ve then got to fix that to the wall as well, and of course drilling 40 – 50 holes can be quite tiring work.
If you decide to do the acrylic panel method I would be inclined to make the panel part of the sign design because IMHO clear over brickwork looks a bit odd. -
Like a few others I think mounting them on clear then brickwork looks wrong. Might be great for a couple of weeks…then the spiders and dust get behind it and it starts to look awful.
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this is a very straight forward installation made difficult by the hard rough brickwork.
if you havent got one, then a good brand hammer action 24v cordless drill is what is best here. personally, if you can hire it for a one off, try get hilti. they knock spots of anything i have used in 22years installing signs. also hilti’s own dril bit with x-tip. cuts into anything like butter.
the main issue you will have is getting a start and preventing the bit from wondering on vibration or the rough surface its cutting into.
to aid this you need a guide of sort to stablize, ive found making a sheet of 5mm correx into my drill guide pattern. whilst in your workshop pre-drill the correx using a new sharp 5mm drill bit.
on site, fix the correx to the wall using screws,rawl plugs with over sized washers. you only need a few fixings as its light and the holes are easy hidden in brickwork.
once in place, "if you can" drill a smaller pilot hole, then follow-up with the 5mm masonay drill. this will normally give you an almost exact locate.
even if you dont use a pilot hole, take your time and the correx will keep your drill bit tip steady enough till it gets a cut on the stone work and then its easy-ozy then on.if the wall is rough cast then its best work out the lettering location and with the side end of a hammer knock off all the high ground bits of roughcast as it will only hamper your template and make locations very difficult. in a nutshell, the flatter the better.
you also need to take the size of lettering and how unlevel the surface is that your fixing onto. for instance, if you have 6 inch high letters with a fairly naroow font and lets take the letter "W" by the time you have fixed that letter in place on what looks like a gfaor level wall. it might end up looking like spiders legs all uneven by the time its fixed in place. keep that in mind… the larger the letters help hide this but still, looking at them in sunlight can sometimes look awful.
i would definately not go with the straps on the rear. i think it looks terrible and a cop-out for the sign maker that goes that route.
acrylice can work well indoors but as has been said, after several weeks or more the dust, spiders etc start to form and looks scabby after a while.
if the walls very uneven and small letters i would advise on either a farme, panel and letters or threaded rods.
personally i dont like rods, but they are useful and a very good solution if its a must.if you go the rods rout and your using composite you may have problems.
composite will have to have an adhexive used to glue the like sof big-head fixings to the letters. make sure your adhesive does not heat up allot or it will cause dimples of the face of the letters.
if your letters are alloy or stainless then you will need the rods glued on or better still soldered on. but again, make sure its done right because you can mark the face of the letter if to much heat is applied.anyway, ill shutup now, need another beer. sorry for teh typos and spelling, doing this quickly on the train isnt easy.
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I’ll often cut 2 sets of letters making the base letter an inline of the outer letter, drill and countersink the base letter and then bond the top letter to the base letter…..making it sound more difficult than it actually is 😀
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