Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Canopy Restoration

This is topic Canopy Restoration in forum Ground Level at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Steven J Hart (Member # 2340) on 10-09-2012, 12:33 PM:

We have a 25' wide by 10' deep Canopy hanging over the doors of our theater. Its got incandescent lights for the name of the theater on three sides, a bunch of chasing lights, and Neon accents. most of the electric stuff works. I'm looking for someone to strip the paint, fix the rust and re-paint. Does anyone have recommendations? I talked to a couple of local sign companies and they said the could "build us a new one" We are located in North Dakota....

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 10-09-2012, 02:22 PM:

Since it's metal, what about an autobody or a machine shop?

Posted by Kenneth Wuepper (Member # 1174) on 10-09-2012, 02:23 PM:

The Wagner Electric Sign Company specializes in restorations and could do this work for you.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 10-09-2012, 07:17 PM:

If the surface metal is rusted, most any sign company will probably recommend at least replacing that surface metal. You might spend more in labor charges trying to fix and repaint the existing metal. If the support frame inside the sign has any serious problems then a new sign might be in order.

Posted by Steven J Hart (Member # 2340) on 10-10-2012, 08:29 AM:

Kenneth, thanks for the tip. I plan to contact Wagner today. Our town's 125th anniversary is next July so we'd like to get the job done soon. We had the neon all replaced about 8 years ago, so I'm hoping most of that could be reused. That was quite an expensive project.

Posted by Steven J Hart (Member # 2340) on 10-26-2012, 07:37 AM:

Wagner Electric sign company builds replicas of historic marquees or does restoration on existing marquees IF you remove it from your building and ship it to their shop. I'm afraid we don't have the funding available to remove the marquee and ship it out. Anyone have other ideas for a firm or individual that does restoration work?
Steve

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 10-26-2012, 11:19 AM:

How bad is your rust issue?

The last time we had ours painted, we were having the whole building painted at the same time. So, we just hired a sign company to come in and remove and store all the neon while the painter worked on the sign. (The regular painter was cheaper than hiring the sign company to do it.) This was in 1996 and it's now starting to need it again, but 16 years is pretty good for a paint job I think. We didn't have a rust problem though so your mileage might vary.

Posted by Steven J Hart (Member # 2340) on 10-26-2012, 12:35 PM:

Mike, that is a great idea about having the neon professionally removed.
The rust is really not much worse than last time we painted (1997) there were just a few small holes near the bottom on the north facing side. The paint still looks pretty good, but is starting to peel. We used DuPont Centauri automotive paint with hardener at that time, and it has held up very well. I don't think that product is available anymore so we may have to use a base/clear coat system this time.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 10-31-2012, 05:27 AM:

Steve, after you get that beautiful retro marquee refurbish and need to replace the incandescent bulbs, you might want to consider getting rid of the incandescents and replace them with LEDs. We recently found a suppler and were able to purchase Sylvania Red and Yellow LEDs (just what you need) at a phenominal price. We would have paid 8 times the amount these are going for in order to have a crew from come in and replacing incandescents more often. That costs us over $500 in labor. The LEDs should give knock off at least 5 replacements, so the incredible longevity of the LEDs saves us a bundle. These are 11w equiv to incandescents not to mention they draw a fraction of a watt so you save in electricity as well.

Go here: http://www.bulbs.com/results.aspx?Ntt=LED+Sign

You can't even get sign incandescents at this price.

The labor issue for us is very important because we use these, not for marquee, but for steplights which require the plates to be unscrewed to replace the bulbs and screwed back on again -- that requires bringing in a union crew to get it done overnight. Not cheap.

Luckily the red and yellows are the ones with this hot deal; if you decide to go this route, you might want to stock on them soon because they normally go for about $8 ea, so we gobbled a bunch up ourselves.

Good luck with the refurbishment!