Fitting Raised Letters

[John Simpson]

Hi Pat, can we have a bit more info please, such as how big are the letters & overall length of total area to be covered in these letters.

L J

[Robert Lambie]

what size of letters, what lengh do they stretch, how high are they?
these pebbles are they big or the little tiny ones casted onto the wall.

[John Singh]

Pebbles!

Aaargh! Drill bits just love them :lol1:

A little more info Pat as the lads have said

[Pat Byrne]

Letters are 9 inches high ( Helvetica or similar)with a width of 10 foot. Height from ground approx. 10 foot. Wall has a fairly rough finish.
Pat

[John Singh]

With a good drill you can use plastic locators
Female cups are screwed into the wall and the male is glued onto the rear of the letter

The male is glued first and when all your letters are ready you need to make a template. Some firms supplying the letters will give you a template. This template is crucial as it it will tell you exactly where to drill.

Each letter is pressed on the template in the right order and numbered. The pressing of the letter leaves a small pin mark (which you will need to mark )

Once this is done then the template can be ofered up to the substrate and drill in at the marks. The females can then be screwed in to the wall

Fairly straight forward except that the drill holes need to be precise and walls with tiny little pebbles here and there can be a headache as the drill tends to slip of a stone and start drilling in a softer more forgiving spot…. trouble is its not the spot you need and you can end up with wonky letters

Some guys get around this by suggesting to the customer that the letters be mounted onto a prepared wooden/or foamex/dibond etc board

and then its just a matter of erecting the board on the wall…perhaps with battens to the rear

[Pat Byrne]

John,
Thanks for reply. I’ve already installed lots of raised letters,but only on smooth surfaces, panels etc. I expect to run into problems on rough cast wall with cups not being altogether flush.
I might have to install on panel and then fix.
Pat

[John Singh]

Panels might be best

As you know even with smooth walls you don’t know what the rendering is like. If the brickie has used seven bags of sand to one of mortar then there’s likely to be (crumbly) problems!

[Robert Lambie]

OK, here’s what i do and it works for me… 😀

order in a couple of sheets of corex, its cheap as chips.
slit it up the length at the exact depth of the letters.
sit your paper template on top of the correx.
using a 3mm drill bit. pre-drill the marks from the letters into the correx.
remove paper template.
you will now have a sheet of correx peppered with pilot holes.
before doing anything else. write top & bottom on correx, also right each letter identity where the holes are.
now put a scrap material under the correx and start drill all the 3mm holes with a sharp 5mm bit…. clean through!

now lets say the sign stretched just 8ft! i would go up and drill a hole through centre of correx, into the wall, rawl plug in, then screw with washer on it…
sit spirit level on the correx and rock it level.
at each side put a couple more screws with washers thru face into wall.

you now have a level template that wont fall off the pebbles due to bad grip/adhesion of tape.

now, using your power-drill… go into the holes slowly at first. let the drill bit chip away forming its grip point in the masonry. because your putting the drill thru a 5mm bit of correx, the predrilled hole will hold the head of the drill bit to prevent it bouncing left and right off the pebbles.
repeat this all the way along…
once you are “positive” all the holes are drilled, remove the template…

you may worry about the template holes drilled to hold the correx but don’t. the holes disappear in all the little chips/pebbles of stone. even if they don’t the letters you put up will.

now template is removed, stick red rawl plugs in each hole so it you can easy locate them. but don’t chap them home.

now, take a hammer and find each red plug, as you do, chap it home firm, then turn hammer on its side and break away the rough around the hole. now holding hammer proper, chap harder around the hole for any tough uneven bits. you only need an inch around each locater hole to be nearly level and it will work perfect!

as you finish one hole, have someone come behind you screwing in female locator’s.

when all done, just snap fix all the letters…

hope this helps mate. 😀

[John Singh]

Wow!
(-) (-)
Excellent tip
Gotta try that

😀

[David Rogers]

And keep the femalesa little bit loose! This’ll give you a bit of leeway when popping the letters on, can help even out the appearance & prevents the nylon stress-splitting at the screw hole as it ages.

[Pat Byrne]

Thanks for all replies. If I go ahead with this, will post pics of finished job
Pat

[Kevin Frew]

You could try clear silicone (masonry). Just support with tape until the silicone sets off.

Cheers
Kev.

[Dave Bruce]

Thanks for the detailed tip Rob, excellent.

While we are on standoff letters, what glue do you guys use for those male plastic connectors onto dibond? I have had two fall of on me over the last year, so I am looking for something better than mitre glue (Superglue).

Cheers

Dave.com.com.com

[idgni]

dave, use TA431! from 3M, roughen the dibond on the back with 80 grit sand paper first.