I didn’t cut the main part of the sign being that it’s 14 feet long, it was just not practical given the space I have or the fact that I would have needed to index and cut at least 5 separate programs. The sign was installed about a month ago and tonight I finally had a chance to go and look at the finished product. Bridge city steel in Portland cut the main body of the sign and did a fantastic job, cut quality was impeccable.
6 Likes
Bet there was not anything about that job that was easy! Did you install?
How tall was it after install?
Nice work!
I have been fabricating for over 20 years, it wasn’t difficult, however I was a little nervous about the sign body twisting and warping after stitch welding the 1.5"×.25" flatbar around the perimeter of the sign to add structure to it. Fortunately i took my time and skipped around enough that it remained perfectly flat with no twist or warp. All the material was 1/4" mild steel. I wanted to be part of the installation but I was unable to be there. The contractor that installed it used a telehandler. The 2 18’ poles had mounting brackets and the sign has matching brackets each side with five 1/2" frame bolts with flange nuts. Everything was assembled on sight and then lifted as a single unit into the holes for the posts. Posts went 4 feet into the ground approximately. Final height was 14 at the top of the posts and about 12 feet under the sign body. I was definitely honored to get the work for this old cemetery. There was a lot of maintenance work that happened out there with the help of a grant from the state of Washington archeological and historical preservation fund. If I could have had control over the entire build and materials it would have been slightly different but cost was a factor. This was something I would definitely do again but as a 3rd party I would have tried to make a better case for different posts, I would have chose 5" square tubing with .25" wall thickness and a few other changes.
Thanks for the story behind it.
I guess if you had a way to lift it easily it would not have been to bad. But for Me that would have been a fork lift and that would have made it a pain.
I take it the 1/4” band around it make it pretty stiff? I would have wanted to be there for the install also unless I really trusted the operator.
Thanks again for posting