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Oz Letterheads to the Rescue ... Again! A plea for help appeared in the Toowoomba Chronicle prior to Christmas, complete with photo of a theatre curtain covered in signwritten adverts. "Can anybody restore this before it falls apart?"
I enlisted the help of another "established" Toowoomba Signwriter: Peter Tierney (henceforth known as "PT") PT is a past President of the Australian Sign Association and now a Life Member ... and definitely now infected by the deadly Letterhead Virus ... hahahahaha. Together we inspected the curtain again and formulated the best plan of attack. With the help of what seemed to be half the town, we mounted the curtain permanently on the back wall of the stage. Because it was impossible to clean with any sort of solvent, we just ran a vacuum cleaner over it to remove layers of dust and then sprayed it with 2 coats of clear Tautflex to seal it. It was then framed with 4x2 planks from 100 year old church pews found under the hall. It was also decided to repaint the outside front of the hall if time allowed. I did a typical "Bushie" sepia mural to go above the front doors, and PT scrolled the top of a plaque to go in the hall, so we could all sign it for prosperity when we finished. The Eager Beavers started arriving. Katie (Kookaburra) was already here spending a month of her school holidays doing work experience with me. Bob (Badges2), her dad ,arrived from Bundaberg with his friend Kerry from Gladstone and a heap of appropriately printed T-Shirts. Kel Lawton found us via a cell phonecall from around the corner! Immediately asked if he has missed out on anything! Where do we start? We just did!!!!! If you saw something that needed doing, you did it. If you were not sure how ... you asked. Everybody shared ... isn't that what Letterheads is all about! By lunchtime, we had enthusiastic L'Heads washing in backgrounds so we could still see the original lettering. Kel took over the outside front of the hall and was first to discover how old signwriters made the lettering fit the spaces! Check out the photo .. the LL on HALL horizontal strokes are twice as long as they should be to try and fill up the rest of the sign! But we were here to restore, not to correct, so the theme was always follow the original! It proved to be a constant sorce of amusement and learning. Swiftly the nickname "Doovers"was given to all the little dots, dashes etc ... that filled in gaps in lines. Letter styles changed within words! Suddenly you were writing a serif then back to block! The Freehand script was unreal! But altogther it looked great. Just hard to understand some of the language tho ... Quote: 'nuff said! Army Bob from Brisbane was closely followed in the door by Bloke (Dave Fisher) .... first time I have seen Dave spend more time with brush than a keyboard at a meet! Ray Wain, who was apprenticed to the apprentice of the original signwriter of the curtain arrived. Very "old school" ... none of this computer stuff! His source of information and original techniques was invaluable. Got him tho! ... infected with "Letterheads" hahahahaha It was an early start via my place for a BYOE (bring your own egg!) BBQ breakfast. With midday temperatures hitting 41c in the shade, it was impossable to keep up the pace, even with the unlimited supply of free refreshments. Brendon turned up from Kingaroy and Ian (pinstiping ace
extraordinaire) Coster-Stewart arrived in time to take over the intricate job of painting the blended scrolls around every panel.
Suddenly things were realy starting to take shape. The chorus of local visitors in the back of the hall was like a cheer squad at a football game! With most of it complete by late afternoon the pressure came off and fun blossomed. Anyone on a plank was fair game from below, pinstriped runners, or at least "L" & "R" on the heels. We finally retired that night to the air-conditioned comfort and buffet meal at a local hotel ... and lots more
reminiscing. It's a known fact signwriters can talk under a load of wet cement as long as the lubrication is adequate! The finishing touches. Gold pinstripe on the border. Couple of panels completely repainted because the backgrounds were not quite right. Faux panel work on the front doors. Group photos. "Thank you"s from both sides. Group photos for the locals! Fond farewells and it was over except for the shouting by midday. Darren finally could restrain himself no longer and several "bungers" punctuated the proceedings. An Oz Meet ain't an OZ Meet without fireworks ! We think it meant ... "Try us, you might like what we have to
offer!" Jon "Bushie"
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Katie was doing a great job on the Web Cam and
Letterville Chat, informing the world of the proceedings, but still found time to do a bit of lettering.
