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KEY TO SUCCESS

Company: Rick’s Sign Company    

Project: Painting a smooth background    

Key to success: Try Ronan’s bulletin enamel line and a foam roller.

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Tools of the trade, background painting anyway: Ronan bulletin enamels and foam rollers for backgrounds (nap rollers for posts) are still our first choice for fast, smooth paint jobs.

Though most of us like to buy as much of our substrates already finished or painted, there will always be times when a sign maker has to paint sign faces, posts and so forth. From questions I get from readers and seminar attendees, I’ve come to realize that not all of us have had much experience with doing these tasks the best and fastest way possible.

I’ve taught a number of crew members who have worked at our commercial sign shop how to paint nice backgrounds, not sprayed but as smooth as sprayed, and with a foam roller as the tool of choice. The process is simple, but I have heard from several sign makers who have tried and failed and determined there must be a better way. 

 

But, for truly smooth backgrounds done without spraying, a simple foam roller and the right technique are very hard to beat. Let’s take a look at this basic sign shop skill, and some of the tools of the trade for this month’s Shop Talk. 

 

We use a lot of prefinished aluminum sheet for our sign making, and some laminates, but still paint our MDO signs in a number of colors, but very often white. Through the years, we’ve tended to use a product that’s been around for a long time for this, which is Ronan’s bulletin enamel line. This sign quality industrial enamel covers well, is oil based and high gloss, and it can be applied right out of the can.

 

 

 

For backgrounds, we always use foam rollers but keep nap (fuzzy) rollers for painting posts. Before painting a MDO panel, there a couple of prep steps to take. First, check the edges for any voids that are visible and fill them with latex caulking. For this, we don’t use an expensive 40- or 50-year caulk, but use low-cost “painter’s caulk” because it is not as flexible and dries a bit harder fairly quickly. Once the voids are filled and painted over with a couple of coats of background enamel, they will be water resistant for years to come.

 

These small but strong supports leave only insignificant marks in the paint job.

Second, the edges are sanded with 80 grit sand paper, normally just using a sanding block. We sand the edges to make them just slightly rounded and less likely to chip in handing. We sand the corners the same way. I can sand both sides without flipping the board by holding the block at a 45 degree angle, working from above or below. I move fast and give every edge about three passes. The most important step is dusting the panel very well before applying any paint.

 

If the sign is single-sided, (normally primed on one side only) then the back is painted first. We paint it like it really counts, which we’ll describe in a moment. Usually no drying time wait is allowed, however, as the sign is flipped front side up and back side down immediately. To keep the wet back side from resting on anything, we may prop one edge up with tall screws or nails driven into one end of sawhorses, leaving just the corner of the other edge touching the saw horses themselves. Or, if we are painting on a table, as shown here, the handiest way to support the wet sign face is to use what is called “painter’s pyramids,” sold by the Hyde company at paint stores and home improvement centers. These small but strong plastic supports, in pyramid shape, are perfect for this job. The first time I bought a set I was pretty sure there was a sign maker behind this product design.

 

Though the photo shows me flipping a wet 4' x 8' MDO panel by myself, this is really a two-man job. (My photographer placed the pyramids in place for me that day.) The paint supports are pretty sharp and leave a miniscule mark where they touch the sign. They can be used just fine even when the paint on both sides count.

 

Then several passes are made both east and west, and north and south, paying no attention to the million air bubbles foam rollers make, just trying to get an even coating of paint over the entire panel.

 

Again, the surface to be painted is dusted perfectly clean. Now we’ll go step by step for the process of roller painting a truly good background. Typically, the enamel is poured directly onto the substrate, not into a roller tray. After some experience, you can pretty well tell how much paint is needed. But the imperative is not to pour too much paint as you can more easily add paint than take some away. (If I pour too much paint and soon realize it, I will roll the excess on a clean piece of cardboard or scrap of MDO.)

Moving fairly quickly, especially in warm weather, the paint is rolled out in a random pattern until the entire background is covered. Fast and random are the key words here. Then, it is rolled east to west a pass or two, then north and south. The point is to produce a coating that is evenly distributed across the whole panel, and I really mean evenly distributed. 

 

Working with a foam roller will produce a million bubbles in the surface of the paint. But with each pass the bubbles will begin to lie down, and the paint begins to tack up slightly. At normal room temperature, after the 10 minutes or so it takes to work the paint back and forth, east and west, north and south, it will be time to finish it out. This is the most important step.

 

When the even coat of paint begins to tack up slightly, you can feel it in the roller and the bubbles will start settling down. Then the final passes are made, usually east and west, with absolutely no pressure being applied to the roller handle and the roller almost floating across the surface. Moving fairly quickly, those floating passes are usually made only once, and then we get out of it. Done right, all the bubbles will completely disappear, and the paint job will be just about as smooth as any sprayed on finish would be. 

 

 

 

If this did not happen, the paint wasn’t ready and the surface should be rolled over aggressively one more time, and the final passes tried again. No pressure on the roller, smooth and fairly fast, and something very near perfection should be attained easily enough. 

 

The last step is to put two coats of paint on the edges, but with a roller that is not very wet at all. A very lightly loaded roller will not leave a heavy ridge of paint that rolls up over the surface of the sign face. If the edges look like they could use a bit more paint, we’ll wrap the roller in a plastic bag and come back in an hour or so and give them another coat.

 

 

All of this sounds simple, and it is, but it must be done right and can take just a bit of practice, mostly to learn how much paint to apply and when to start that final pass with the roller. A dust-free shop is hard to come by, so airborne dust may still appear but usually isn’t a significant factor. Our glass-smooth, roller-applied background will provide a good and durable surface to apply our graphics to.

 

When installing signs, we always take some touch up paint to finish the screws or bolts used to secure the sign. This means always needing a supply of touch up brushes. In recent years we’ve noticed that the bargain counters at most auto parts and hardware stores often have packages of inexpensive brushes that are just great for this job. Very often a package of a dozen or more brushes can be bought for less than $5—a real bargain. So next time you’re around a display like the one shown, take a look and see what you’ll find. I think I’ve got an inventory now that will last me a year or two, for just a few dollars.

 

For painting posts, we use the same Ronan enamels, but may prime the posts with a latex flat exterior paint first. Usually we just put two coats of enamel, often a day apart. But, the cracks and voids in the posts we fill with the same “painter’s caulk” we use for faces. A really good caulk will stay too soft and flexible, which is not what we want, so it really does matter which caulk is used.

 

And most of all, it matters which roller. For posts, to be able to apply a fairly heavy coat and get down into the textures of the wood, we use “fuzzy” rollers, or nap rollers. But never do we use them for backgrounds, as that “fuzz” will be a plague to us if we do. Foam rollers were a great invention for signmakers, and we have painted many a beautiful background with them, and hope to paint many more. 

 

 

Letters to Rick

 

Good evening Rick, 

 

My husband Ken and I would like to thank you for the knowledge you instilled in us during your seminar (at the NBM Show in Long Beach, Calif). Your wisdom on how to pay employees, check with someone prior to digging and how it’s okay to grow sideways was beneficial to us. We are currently working on purchasing a Roland VP-540 since this fits in our budget and a Royal Sovereign 65" Laminator (expensive laminator). Please pass on our gratitude to your son for taking his time to educate us on used equipment so we did not make that mistake. We thank you and appreciate your willingness to share your experiences, knowledge and wisdom.

 

 —Ken and Deborah Buck

Buck Signs

San Bernardino, Calif.

 

Deborah & Ken,

 

We are both glad to help you anyway we can, and realize making large purchase decisions for your sign company is a daunting task. If we could shed some light, perhaps a little experience on that process, we are happy for that.

 

If I had one piece of advice for beginning a sign and graphics business, it would be to try to figure out early on what you want to specialize in, and focus on those areas, market to those areas and stay on track. Your clients will try to pull you in a dozen directions, half of which you would be better off not going, so try to stay focused. 

 

Keep an eye on the bottom line, of course. Try to get the right price for your work always, being consistent on a healthy profit margin. You are in the business to make money, not to just create jobs for yourself, which is unfortunately what most of us do and we might be better off working for the city street department.

 

Good luck and best wishes, from your friends,

 —Rick & Slade