Art & Inspiration Old Signs

Even more neon.

 

Here are two that I've grown to like.



What Chevy guy wouldn't want to get their hands on THAT sign?




The Lazy 8 at a drive-in...

Vance

 

Very cool post, I will have to dig around I have a few someplace

 

I'm an electrician/sign installer in the Chicago area and the sad thing is most of these cool ass old signs are not maintained and they turn into hugh piles of junk, full of pigeon shit. it's too bad .........nobody makes this stuff anymore.

 

One of these in Salem,OH. too. Hell, I think its still there.

 

Here are a few we have made at work. All new signs but made to look similar to old ones.

 

Another

 

Newest one. The main part of this one was done out of house , due to another large project going on at the sametime. I realy like this. Wish I could put my name on it. But I personaly cant.

 

I went to San Fransisco in November and seen these signs. Thought they were cool.

 

frisco

 

The best neon sign I ever saw (outside of Las Vegas) was a huge red eagle at the Anhauser-Busch plant here in Houston during the 70's. The wings flapped up and down via series of neons. This thing was HUGE, and you could see it in the darkness 10 miles away....it was even more strange in the fog! But its gone now, obviously too expensive to maintain. I know some of yall in Houston know which one I'm talking about.
Here is a movie of what it once looked like:

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...um=10&um=1&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&sa=G

Patrick

 

Uhhhh..... what?

I always felt like neon signs were sort of like art, but I'm sure of it now. Thanks for being dedicated enough to obtain the knowledge and talent necessary to keep this art form alive!

 

The blue used on the body of the mermaid was a poor choice. "Neo Blue" is a double coated tube made for straight borders or sweeping arcs. When used for anything else, it loses color in any heated bend, as the phosphor is so thick, making the color fade rather quickly.

Also, whomever bent the glass didn't know what they were doing very well. See the darkened areas of the blue glass near the points? Lead. That person couldn't even adjust their torches properly, which resulted in bringing the lead out of the glass to the surface. This makes it considerably more brittle and shortens the lifespan.

Top right curved piece of white glass was remade poorly. Rather than make a pattern from one of the other same size pieces, the bender took the cheap way out by not having the electrode stand into the glass housing (PK), instead using a double back and a piece of wire to create a dandy fire hazard.

Half-assed work always sucks, no matter what the medium. Cool sign though.

 

Here's a few I have or have had over the years. I am limited on space so unfortuantely I usually get rid of the bigger ones because I don't have room for them. The red hat sign was painted on the sign of an old gas station near the TN AL state line.

 

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this one lives inside by the pool table. it's 12 feet wide by about 3 feet tall.

it will glow again soon, but it's hard to find wire and parts for these old things...

 

Not one bit. Let me know how many tube supports, GTO wire, tie down wire, etc. you need and I'll hook you up.

 

Hey Ryan...double click on these babys. I think you may be familiar with both of 'em. One of my biggest regrets is losing my photo of our cars with the Peckerwood Club sign in the background. Lost those photos in a hard-drive crash...damn!
Photo on the right was taken out of the Contiential Club's upstairs 2006....cool chick being towed?

 

no shit?...

i need two transformers, and five tube supports, and, shit, how much gto do i need for this thing? i wanna replace all the old wire.

thank you!

 

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Here's a before and after of a Chevy sign I restored for a friend of mine this summer. It's consigned to the barret jackson auction in a couple of weeks.

 

No problem. HAMBers receive materials at cost. Sound fair enough? Drop me an email/pm with the info off the tags on those transformers. (Jpeg would be better.) My guess is that they will either be 12,000 or 15,000 secondary volts at 30 milliamps.

 

Here's one I had a few years ago and traded to get something I wanted a little more. This would have looked awesome with all it's neon in place! Wish I still had it. Don't see too many die cut truck signs.

 

That's a great sign - especially with the old phone number with the "RE" exchange.

 

I'm lucky enough to live in a town that's managed to keep at least some of it's small town character. Not exactly a sign, but close enough.

 

Hey, you guys from Portland, OR - you are so close to the shop with the neon FED on the sign (I can't remember the name of the parts store). You know, the parts store in St John's. It's only a couple of blocks from that Signal gas station...

Go getta pic.

 

Here's two old signs alot of you are gonna see in a few months............

 

MPLS, home of The Replacements, Bob Dylan and this. Kind of surreal tucked downtown.