Ornamental iron is a natural with 3D signage

My philosophy is “why carve and make stuff if it is already available?” Ornamental iron is a great example. These signs use ornamental iron work from King Ornamental Metals. They’re pot metal ornaments made for railings and fences. They’re meant to be welded on wrought iron fences as decorative ornaments.

These two signs were made for the lobby of the Columbia Gorge Hotel, which is a beautiful old hotel built in 1921. I wanted to do something appropriate that would fit with the building’s architecture, and the ornamental metal components did the job.

The Spa & Gift Shop

For the Spa & Gift Shop sign, I added two ornaments that were made by welding two components together to fit around the sign.

The two components are in the foreground and the welded pair are behind them.

The ornaments are pot metal, and welding that can be a bit of a challenge.

I dry-fitted the ornament to the sign, which is double-faced and made from 15-lb. HDU board.

Since this sign is indoors, I didn’t use a steel framework inside the sign. It’s up quite high and no one will be making contact with it, so I simply drove 4-in. screws through the ornaments to attach them to the sign.

I finished the sign with Ronan Aquacote waterborne enamel paint. For the border, I used Ronan Aqua Leaf Faux Metallic paint in copper. When finishing HDU board, I don’t use primer. I apply the finish with a 2-in.-wide roller, then use a small foam brush to “tip off” the paint, pulling the excess paint off and leveling the strokes. I apply two coats this way, and it holds up for years.

The brackets were left unfinished. If you use the iron outside, it will rust, and that can look really good. If you don’t want that, though, you can spray it with urethane clear, and it will hold up fine.

To hold the sign, I made a simple bracket that I mounted to the wall. I attached the sign to the bracket using long screws.

Valentino’s Bar

On the sign for Valentino’s Bar, the ornamental iron work served as the mounting bracket. The signs were made of layers of 2-in. 15-lb. HDU board that fit on a frame of welded steel tubing that was welded to the ornamental iron work.

The faces were assembled with Gorilla Glue and plenty of clamps.

The ornaments were welded to tubular steel to create the framework to hold the sign faces and provide the mounting method.

The ornaments extended inside the end panels.

Here’s how it looked from the front.

Installation was just a matter of screwing the bracket to the wood beam. The graphics were sandblasted into the HDU blanks. I finished the signs with Ronan Aquacote waterborne enamel. The border is copper Ronan Aqua Leaf Faux Metallic paint.

The back of the sign uses a digital print of an illustration of the hotel on the center panel.

Dayna Reed has been in the sign industry since 1980. He lives in Hood River, Oregon, when he’s not on the road visiting friends and playing Frisbee golf. two DVDs, 3D Signs Made Easy and More Super Cool 3D Signs, are available at SignCraft.com. You can save $20 when you buy both DVDs.