Hand painting design graphics onto external metalwork can be best produced using oil based enamel paint. This is for added durability but also for better adhesion to the metal and can also give better coverage.
Its not essential its a gloss finish paint, but is essential its a oil/solvent based. So a matt finish solvent based paint can be used.
The dry times are much longer for using oil based paints & this can be problematic if requiring 2 coats of paint to be fully opaque, especially if produced in winter. So this has to be accounted for.
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The clients with this project supplied digital artwork, which was scaled to the size required to be painted onto the metal slatted cage, which was to house bicycles for work staff.
The metal slats were all fitted as one unit with a welded brace slat top & bottom. The whole bicycle cage & racking had been assembled, so the sign writing was to be produced onto the powder coated slats in situ.
The on site artwork is created in the studio by converting the digital onto paper. The image is converted via a plotter/printer.
Once all the graphics have been produced paper artwork had to then be measured & divided up into each slat width. So in effect having a lot of strips of paper with just a segement of image on each strip.
The first stage on site, is to ensure a line of centre for each & every slat that the artwork is to be reliefed onto. So this is marked out with a white marking pencil. Its essential its correct or the whole image wouldn’t line up neatly & would look off once completed. To make things more difficult the request was to have the same image produced on the left side of the cage and also the right side of the cage, so each image was mirrored.
This proved easier to have an artwork for each side of the cage, rather than flip each segment of artwork over & reuse on the opposing side/slats. As you can imagine this proved some getting to grips with both from the initial enquiry from the clients & then producing on site.
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The artwork ‘pounced’ onto the slats with using powder. This allows artwork to be visable & be used as a guide to paint the artwork acurately in the ideal position/s. Each image covered 12 of the slats, so there were 24 slats to be painted overall. The 12 on the left side of the bicycle cage & the 12 on the right hand side.
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The hand painting design graphic is assisted with specialist tape. This ensures more crisp sharp & straight lines. It can assist in speeding up the process, which is useful, if like in this instance, the image requires 2 coats of paint to make fully opaque. Its best to apply with two coats to give a better smooth finish, rather than a glupy bumpy look to the applied paint.
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The opposing side of the bike cage was then produced in the same way, allowing the first coat of paint to the left side hand painted design graphic to dry. It was quite tricky to get a paint brush between the slats & also get a straight line, due to awkward painting positions.
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With the left & right side hand painted design graphics produced with a coat of paint. It was then a case of re-cover all the white on both images. This is no quick production when hand painting, every area has to be re-covered one line at a time.
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Traditional & Contemporary Hand Painted Sign Writing in London
Sign Writer Traditional Signs of London
https://traditionalsignsoflondon.uk/contact/
info@traditionalsignsoflondon.uk