The front of the heart gets the word "Stettler", Well actually, both sides get the name of the town on them. These letters will be 3/4" white pvc. This is so we don't have to paint them. The pvc is UV stable, and has the color running right through it. So small scratches or dings shouldn't be a problem for years to come.
Due to time issues, as well as current space issues, we had the truss welded up at Brewsters Welding a couple of doors down from us. He did a stellar job! Each frame actually splits in half, with guide pins, so each side can only get put together one way.
Jody got to work on painting it with a gloss red rust paint. I think her shirt was white when she started :) It's my hope that the red truss will blend very nicely into the red heart. As nice as the fabrication is, I don't want it to take centre stage!
While the paintwork was being done, our Techno cut out 2 sets of the word "Stettler" I punched 2 holes through each letter, and countersunk a 5/16" Tee-nut. That should be plenty of power to hold these to the truss. I also milled a pocket on the back of each letter, slightly bigger than the bracket on the truss. This eliminates the text kerning, and height issues, that would arise from free-balling all the letters on the frame. They ended up locking the letters in place, easy peasy.
Guess who is mysteriously missing from the above photo.........................?
That's how I roll!
Not a lot of structure is visible behind the letters, but what is visible looks pretty sweet, all shiny and new!
Once all the letters lined up to the holes in the truss, I cut a bunch of 1/8" thick disks, and glued them up as screw caps to cover my nuts.......................Oh no he di'int! (circle snap)
Once we were finished dealing with the giant letters, Jody moved on to painting the bridge.
She started with a red-oxide primer, as our bridge will be a steel bridge.
And then got a number of paint treatments, this being the first.
I find I'm walking a fine line for this. My artistic, movie prop side really wants to make the train, and the bridge VERY weathered and rusty, but I'm sure the Stettler board of trade would prefer to not show their town as a post apocalyptic, rusty nightmare! So clean looking is the order of the day, but I think the bridge is a very good meld of the 2!
8)
JWO
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