Connect with us

Business Management

Plastic Arts Signs Reels in Customers to The Fish House

The behemoth sign is likely to become a Pensacola icon

Published

on

Harold Dodd is business-development manager for Plastic Arts Signs (Pensacola, FL).

EQUIPMENT AND MATERIALS
Cranes: Crane truck, from Elliott Equipment Co. (Omaha, NE), (402) 592-4500 or www.elliottequip.com; bucket truck, from Altec (Birmingham, AL), (800) 958-2555 or www.altec.com
Foundation: Schedule 40 base pipes and angle iron, available from industrial-equipment and building-supply shops
Lighting: LED bulbs, from home-improvement and lighting-supply stores; LED power supplies, from such vendors as International Light Technologies (Peabody, MA), (978) 818-6180 or www.intl-lighttech.com;
white neon tubing, from Tecnolux (Brooklyn, NY), (718) 369-3900 or www.tecnoluxglass.com; neon transformers, from France, a Scott Fetzer Co. (Fairview, TN), (800) 753-2753 or www.sfeg.com; Electronic timer, from Intermatic (Spring Grove, IL), (815) 615-7000 or www.intermatic.com; Lamplighter lighting controller, from Action Lighting (Bozeman, MT), (406) 586-5105 or www.actionlighting.com
Router: Gerber Sabre 408 8 x 10-ft. CNC router table, from Gerber Scientific Products (Tolland, CT), (800) 222-7446 or www.gspinc.com
Software: Composer 5.0 software, from Gerber Scientific Products
Welder: Millermatic 251 MIG welder, from Miller Electric Mfg. Co. (Appleton, WI), (920) 734-9821 or www.millerwelds.com
Coating: Semi-gloss, automotive paint, from PPG (Pittsburgh), (412) 431-3131 or www.ppg.com
Misc.: New Holland tractor, available from farming-equipment stores; Excavator, available from building-equipment stores

 

Maria Goldberg, an executive at Pensacola, FL’s The Fish House, approached me in January 2015 about producing and installing a new “iconic landmark sign” for the restaurant. After an initial meeting with the client, I sought input from Pensacola’s planning department and building officials to determine permissible height and square footage for the sign.
We also inquired about applicable restrictions in place because the property was located within Pensacola’s historic district. The property where the client wanted the sign had an SSD zoning designation that made it subject to different criteria and restrictions than other properties in the vicinity.
We scheduled another meeting with the client to brainstorm our shared vision for the sign. After another half-dozen summits to present and evaluate various concepts and renderings, Goldberg provided her own conceptual drawing and said, “This is the direction we want to go with this.” A discussion of pricing estimates followed.
This job clearly presented an opportunity to fabricate a once-in-a-lifetime project, both for me and for Plastic Arts Sign Co. My role is far more than that of a sales rep; it’s my job to facilitate transforming a customer’s vision from concept to tangible outcome.

A pretty face
Our design department used Gerber Composer 5.0 software to finalize design and pre-engineering, and create production/routing files for our Gerber Sabre 408 CNC router. Next, we cut out faces, backs and returns from .090-gauge aluminum on the Sabre for the Fish House’s open-faced channel letters. This included 684 1.5-in.-diameter holes for the LED-bulb sockets. Then, Plastic Arts routed the faces, backs and returns for the 31-ft.-tall, animated arrow on the routing table, which required approximately 1,200 1.5-in.-diameter holes for the sockets.
We repeated this step for the 12-ft. tall x 22-ft. 5-in.-deep cabinet; 27 ft. 8-in. curved top; 14-ft.-long red snapper icon and so forth. With all of the aluminum routed, we fabricated the framework. Its various elements entailed a combination of aluminum tubing, angle and flat bar, which we welded with a Millermatic 251 MIG welder. Because of the tightly pointed crevices, welding the returns on the snapper’s mouth and rear fins proved particularly challenging.
Because of the sign’s sheer size – and the necessity to transport it safely to the jobsite – we fabricated it in six different sections. The project consumed most of our shop space for the better part of 10 weeks.
As we completed the metalwork and assembly of each section in the shop, we prepped them for painting and sent them to the spray booth. The client chose the paint colors from samples we provided, requesting that we use a semi-gloss finish. We encountered some problems with the crimson-red finish on the large main cabinet; it wouldn’t completely dry. PPG specialists Carl Townsley, Holley McGraw and Scott Ballard, employees at Automotive Painters Supply prepped and repainted the central cabinet in-shop. Plastic Arts Sign Co. has since switched to a PPG automotive-paint mixing system, which has been a real upgrade.

A firm foundation
Our in-house neon shop bent the white border neon for the curved top; the shop also built the sign’s primary cabinet and the clear-red neon that illuminates the snapper. We power the neon with 15,000V self-adjusting transformers. Because of all the sockets installed in the open-face channel letters and big arrow sections, we installed LED bulbs in a 10-ft. section of the arrow. Then, we connected them to a multi-speed controller/animator and tested numerous bulbs, sockets and the controller). When illuminated, the combination of the big arrow and the LED bulbs that chase it resemble vintage Las Vegas casino installations. The Lamplighter controller that we installed to animate the big arrow has 32 chasing-speed options. The controller was installed in the metal electrical box attached to one of the base pipes behind the sign. The remote-controlled time clock came with its own weather proof container and is installed next to the electrical box.
When in-shop fabrication neared completion, it was time to excavate the footers and set the large steel base pipes for the foundation. Lead installers Al Jacobi and Scott Novarro set up two GoPro cameras on tripods at the jobsite to document the installation process in a time-lapse video. To see our video and an installation slideshow, visit www.facebook.com/plasticartssigns.
We rented an excavator from a local equipment vendor to do the digging and used our New Holland tractor and scoop to relocate the dirt. Josh Huber, the structural engineer the customer hired for the job, specified steel-pipe and footer sizes to comply with Florida building codes. Codes require sign foundations built to withstand 150-mph winds (perhaps you’ve heard the Florida Panhandle is prone to hurricanes). The twin footers span 3 ft. deep x 7 ft. wide x 20 ft. long each, which equates to 15.5 cu. yds. of concrete per footer, or 31 total cu. yds.
Installing the foundation also meant we had 31 cu. yds. of dirt to relocate. Fortunately, the client allowed us to keep the dirt onsite; we spread it around to cover some potholes and washed-out areas. We cut hundreds of feet of #5 rebar to specified lengths onsite, then field-welded them into cages to reinforce the concrete footers.
Setting two 24-in.-diameter Schedule 40 base pipes required pre-spacing with welded lengths of heavy-gauge angle iron. Then, we rigged them for lifting and hoisted them into the footer holes with our Elliott crane truck. The steel pipes had already been prepped and primed in the storage yard before we transported them to the jobsite.

Advertisement

Heavy lifting
After the concrete was poured, we left the crane truck onsite to hold the twin base pipes vertically level. It stayed in place for a few days while the concrete cured. Later the same week, our installers returned to install the two 18-in.-diameter steel stage pipes with welded, ½-in.-thick steel donuts and caps.
We used our Elliott crane truck to do the lifting, and welding and painting the poles inside our new Altec bucket truck. We decided the structure needed to sit and cure for another week before it would be ready to withstand wind-load requirements. Then, we developed a plan to erect the signage
elements, and loaded the central cabinet and bottom arrowhead sections on trailers and transported them to the jobsite. We used the crane truck and bucket truck simultaneously to erect the sign elements.
First, we hoisted the large arrowhead section into place, then leveled and welded it. We made it in two upper and lower sections; the big central cabinet was bolted together while on the ground, then hoisted into place and securely welded. Next, we erected the remaining arrow sections. With the “Fish” text already installed on the upper central cabinet, we secured the remaining “House” channel letters and the “Restaurant” plastic faces were installed. We later installed the 27-ft. 8-in.-tall curved top.
Finally, we installed all 1,864 LED bulbs and border neon on the sign. We connected a generator to it to test all of the electrical components before leaving the jobsite. About a week later, Gulf Power installed a meter to regulate the sign’s power consumption, and electricians ran the circuitry in underground conduit and made the connection to the sign. As a last-minute addition, we ordered and installed an Intermatic offsite time clock for the sign. The client can now control the hours of operation of the sign remotely through an Internet connection, user name and password, which is really cool in and of itself!
Even though this entire process required more than a year to complete, the actual in-shop manufacturing lasted slightly more than 10 weeks. Installing the steel pipes and footers required about four days. Erecting the signage, testing the components, installing the time clock and final touch-ups took another four or five days.
After Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis destroyed the world-famous Pensacola Beach sign, Plastic Arts was hired to rebuild and maintain it. Having served as the manufacturer and installer of the new Fish House sign, we can now add another high profile Florida sign to our portfolio. Another feather in our hat? No, I call it “another big fish that didn’t get away.”

 

Advertisement

Subscribe

Advertisement

Most Popular