The Acme-Goldberg Autosign is a winner

It's been a while since I have posted. OK it's been a long while. We have been busy with a special project this winter that I just had to share. Back in December I received to an e-mail with an invitation to an international sign/sculpture competition to be judged by attendees to the ISA sign show in Orlando.

The rules defined a size for the build envelope 2' X 2' X 6' tall maximum and it had to be displayed on the box or crate it was shipped in. It had to have the word "sign" on it somewhere and the theme was Rube Goldberg. I knew most of the other shops on the list of invitees and there were some real masters of the high end sign world included. Well after some thought I decided I would accept. I had my idea right off. We would be building the worlds only complete sign shop in a box. We started in early January which gave us four months. I wanted to use things I like so it would have parts that would look like brewery tanks, bicycle parts and boat parts. Other than that we used old "stuff". We had the fun of combing through junk shops for the first week picking objects that had the style and patina to make up our steampunk sign factory. We then spread it all out on a table and that was our material source. We found an old electrical tester that we got switches and gauges out of and we were off. Below are the sketches we worked from and some shots of the finished piece. We had a great time at the show and got to meet and get to know some of the best in our little niche of this business. As it happened we also won first prize which was an honor. This project was a refreshing change from what I typically build and it struck a feeling long forgotten. One thing is for sure it won't be the last one so stay tuned.