Making Our House Signs
After years of experience producing quality British made house signs we have built up a reputation of one of the UK's leading specialists in cast polyurethane resin house signage. Many of our techniques come from the original cast iron sign production, but instead we use a modern resin to pour the signs, which has an excellent weatherproof quality and durability.
The magic starts right from the initial enquiry where we can advise you on the best fitting shape and size of sign, to suit your particular requirements. As all names are different lengths and may be made up of just one long word, or split into three or four separate words, we can give you different options on how best your name will set out on certain plaques, and then advise you on the size of letters that we will be able to use.
Once you've got your shape and size you can then select a raised motif from our vast range of over 800 designs to choose from, most of which we have in different sizes to enable them to be produced on the smallest size, up to the largest house signs that we make.
Now you can sit back and relax whilst we create your personalised door sign.
Take a look at our house signs1. Setting out signs
For every plaque we produce we make it's own individual mold using Setting house plaques one of our range of master plates. The masters that we use have the characteristics of the old cast iron signage, so that when we produce a mold it will create a plaque with the appearance of a traditional cast iron house sign.
We hand set the house name and numbers using raised letters which we stock in a range of sizes, the best fitting raised motif is then used for the space that is available on the sign.
After a quality check it is then on to the next stage of the process.
2. Creating the Mold
In this process we use a vacuum forming machine to heat a specialist forming plaque moulds 1 type of plastic sheet which is then sucked down over the masters.
After a short time the plastic takes an exact form of the signs that are on the forming table and the suction can be switched off. Once cooled each house sign is then cut out and quality inspected before it moves on to the pouring bed.
3. Pouring the house signs
We now have your individual mold ready to pour, but before we house signs set on casting bedcan start we need to clean them out and set them exactly level on the pouring bed, using spirit levels to ensure an even pour. When the molds are set we can use our purpose built resin machine to fill the molds with the polyurethane resin. The resin is made up of two materials that are mixed together using our machine and then poured in to the house sign molds and left to set. After the whole bed of signs are cast we need to wait for the plaques to thoroughly cure before they are popped from their individual sign molds.
4. Preparing Signs for Artwork
Now that the molds are cast and have been popped out to create the unique signs, they need to have the edges trimmed smooth and fixing holes drilled. The cast signs are now professionally sprayed (normally in a satin black colour) which leads on to the final stages of artwork and letter painting.
5. Hand painting the signs
The signs are now brought to life by our gifted artists - hand painting the raised motifs to the customers requirements and also adding a background scene if required. All the artwork is done using permanent acrylic paints which are then over sealed using a professional sign treasure sealer, to enable the paintwork to withstand the elements.
Finally the letters are hand painted and sealed to create your perfect house names and numbers being golded bespoke house sign.
6. From Mock up to finished House Sign
From a starting rough mock up, it is hard to visualize the amazing transformation, that the house sign goes through to create your very own personalised work of art.