From the sign business to vintage aircraft restoration

Dave Correll and Ann Meillier are no strangers to SignCraft readers. We first featured them and their shop, Brushwork, back in October of 1989, about a year after they opened Brushwork in a 1500-sq.-ft. shop. Faribault is a town of about 25,000 about 50 miles south of Minneapolis.

For the next 30-plus years, they turned out creative signs of almost every type—from showcards to large dimensional signs and murals. Both are graduates of the Detroit Lakes Area Vo-Tech sign graphics programs, and their roots are in hand lettering and design.

Over time, though, computers brought changes to the sign business that made running a design-oriented custom sign shop harder—and not as much fun. Increasingly, customers were bringing their own often-ineffective designs, and they often were harder to deal with. Prices were driving more and more of the work, and the hassles of running a business took their toll.

“It got to where Ann and I just didn’t want to do it anymore,” says Dave. “I didn’t want to sit in front of the computer all day and order wholesale prints and that sort of thing. It just wasn’t fun. We had 30 good years in business, but we couldn’t see that lasting. We decided we would close the shop and look for jobs.

“About that time I had restored a 1954 Chevy pickup truck, and I discovered that I really enjoyed doing that type of work. Luckily, there was an ad in the paper of an aircraft restoration company that was looking for a craftsman.”

 

The job was at a company called Rare Aircraft, which restores vintage airplanes. Dave knew the owner, and it looked like a cool company to work for, so he took the job.

“It’s been interesting because between making custom signs and restoring the pickup, I was familiar with most of the processes, “he says. “Like signs, it’s a lot of wood and metal work, though I had to fine-tune my skills for aircraft work. With sign work, you’re always trying to meet the budget, keep costs down and crank the work out. With aircraft there’s a lot more precision. It’s complex and there’s a lot to remember.”

Along with his restoration work, Dave also handles the graphics. This can range from a stripe down the fuselage and the NC numbers, to replicating the vintage graphics on a classic Pepsi airplane.

“They discovered that ‘Oh, he’s pretty good at that…’ so I’ve done a lot of graphics there. They have an outstanding painter, and they use a catalyzed polyurethane paint, so all the finishes are just perfect. Rare Aircraft is known for the finishes on the airplanes they restore. Some of the graphics are done with masks and some is hand lettering.

“I brush on a high solids clear over any hand lettering that I do, basically the same way Lane Walker does. I learned that from his article, ‘Clear coat hand lettering for maximum durability’. The clear really protects the enamel.”

Usually there are two or three planes in progress at Rare Aircraft, though right now there are five underway. Dave works there four days a week, then uses the off days for some custom sign work.

“I still do sign projects on the side,” he says. “It’s nice to be able to say no to a lot of things and choose the ones that I really want to do. It’s good to get to pick and choose. I think I may slow down a bit when I hit 65. Ten hours makes for a long day. The three-day weekends are nice, though, because that’s when I do my other projects.

“Who knows how long I’ll work? I’ll always be messing around with signs. I don’t see myself letting go of that. I really enjoy hand lettering—it’s fun and so relaxing.”

“This 1936 Stinson SR-7B Reliant is a recent project of Rare Aircraft,” says Dave. “It was used by Pepsi for promotion for several years. I built the doors for it and repaired the wings. These vintage Stinson planes have a welded steel air frame with wood stringers covered with fabric for the fuselage. For the wings and tail, steel frames with aluminum ribs are covered with fabric. There’s a lot of sheet metal up front, but the rest is fabric—even the doors. I also did all the lettering and much of the masking for the graphics on the plane. There’s a YouTube video that tells more about its restoration.”

Photo by Scott Slocum

“These panels were done on some hatch doors from an old Stearman airplane. Rare Aircraft’s owner asked me just to do something cool on them and this is what I came up with. I distressed them to match the condition of the panels.”

“He also asked me to do this mural, which is on an 8-by-9-ft. canvas. It’s in the main hangar where we do most of our work. He just told me to spend an hour a day on it and do something cool. I’d work on that then go back to working on airplanes.”

“These distressed vintage airplane logo panels are also on the hangar wall. After they were lettered, I just beat them up a bit. I work the paint a little thinner than I usually would. Once it’s dry, I use fine steel wool to flatten the paint and denatured alcohol to take some of it off. The paint is still fairly fresh so it comes off easily.

“If there’s a seam or an existing scratch on the panel, I’ll often run a bit of wax along that before I paint. Once the paint is dry, you can wipe the paint right off that area. It reveals the rusty scratch or seam. It looks more authentic.”

“I had to distress the entire box for the Fleck’s truck, which was quite a job. The box was really rough, and they didn’t straighten anything out. They took it off the truck so I could work on it while the frame and engine was being restored. When the brewery closed, the truck was sold to a welder. He spray painted it all black. A volunteer removed most of the black paint with rubbing compound to reveal the original lettering.

“I could see enough of the original lettering to make patterns. What was missing on one side was usually there on the other side, so it worked out. It was important to me to replicate the original layout. I was impressed by the work that sign painter had done and wanted to replicate that.

“When I was done lettering it, I scraped and scratched the paint in the dented areas. Then I went over the new scratches with an antiquing solution that rusts steel quickly. I went over the whole box with a Scotch Brite pad to dull it down and age the lettering. It was more work to do that than it was to letter it. After I started rubbing it down I realized that it was a lot more fun to letter it than to distress it.”

“This truck was masterfully restored by a guy who also worked at Rare Aircraft. He did it for his brother, who owns the towing company. He just wanted something simple on there that was appropriate for that era. I did a lot of sketches but they finally chose one that they liked. The lettering is pretty clean, but back then, hand lettering wasn’t always that way.”

“This sign has two pieces of ¾-in. overlaid plywood top and bottom cut in an arc to serve as the frame. I glued 3mm PVC board on the frame to be the face. The arrow is ½-in. PVC board. It’s in a long-established shoe store here in Faribault.”

“This small cutout mural was done for a local coffee shop. In the SignCraft feature on Patrick Smith years ago, there was a graphic on his shop wall—a can of paint holding a paint brush, sort of a ’50s looking thing. I did this in that style, but with a sun holding a coffee cup for Good Day Coffee.”