I have been asked to quote on renovating/refinishing 15 cast bronze plaques. They are on walls and cannot be removed. Some are nearly 100 years old, others maybe 25 years. They range in size from about 8x10" up to 3x4 feet. I have sold quite a few of these over the years, using Gemini to cast or machine them for me. They use a baked enamel on the background. That won't be possible here. Most are outdoors, some indoors.
The process is basically, clean well, paint, sand raised areas to expose new bronze. Clear coat (maybe). I would like to bid on this. I think I can do a good job but have never done this and don't have a plaque to practice on. My first concern is this: Is a good quality canned spray paint going to adhere well to the backgrounds?
I actually like them aged looking but they are difficult to read. One idea is the leave the patinaed backgrounds and just sand the raised areas. My only concern with that is I am inevitably going to sand parts of the background and would not be able to fix that, so painting the background is probably the way to go. I did find a YouTube video that says use laquer on the backgrounds. I'm not sure why laquer is used. Is laquer even available in a rattle can?
Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks.
Posted by Rick Sacks (Member # 379) on :
Hey Chuckers, splendid SC article! Truly impressed me and made me glad for you. As far as the plaques go, why not talk to someone with the plaque dept. at Gemini? I also wonder about doing the reverse of how you're thinking. What if the letters were sanded anf followed with a thin coat of spraylat on the surface and then spray background and water blast off the latex?
Posted by Chuck Peterson (Member # 70) on :
Thanks, Rick. It is exciting to be featured in SignCraft!
I have talked to Gemini. All they could tell me was they use baked enamel. I did find out that Matthews offers a refinishing kit. They are sending me info.
I'm not sure I follow your Spraylat idea. I have used Spraylat to cut and paint signs but not on raised letters.
Posted by bruce ward (Member # 1289) on :
I have done these plaques before. Washed them, scuffed with scothbrite (destroyed scotchbrite) sprayed with 2 part epoxy, sprayed background, redid the raised lettering with foam roller (using a press method instead of rolling) waited a couple days and then urethane cleared whole mplaque they came out great and last I saw they were still looking good, this was well over 12 years ago
Posted by Si Allen (Member # 420) on :
Clean, paint the plawue ... then use one of these to sand the raised part!
