A few years ago, down in Alabama, I led a group of students in the construction of a fence made of scrapped road signs. I had long been fascinated by road signs -- the graphics, the reflective surface, the raw materiality of 1/8" solid aluminum -- and finally had a stockpile, donated by the county, to play around with. The fence was fairly straightforward: we just cut the signs into strips, which then served as pickets on a conventional wood frame. Offcuts and stop signs were pieced together to make gates, doors, and roofs for shade structures.
The daycare fence and H.E.R.O. community garden gave me a chance to experiment with techniques for cutting the signs. Aluminum is fairly soft, and I found a carbide-toothed finishing blade (60 teeth) jacked into a regular circular saw to be a simple, effective solution. We also tried a similar blade in a table saw, but the kickback and strain on the motor was kind of nasty.
Moving forward, I wanted to bend signs to make more complex forms and stiffen the sheets, which are rather floppy in their flat form. I had built a dining table out of a flat sign when I lived at Arcosanti, and engineered a folded chair with a single bent sign back in Baltimore, but both of these were kind of amateur iterations. Experience had shown that a series of 3/8" holes, drilled 1" on center, could form lines of weakness that allowed the signs to bend. However, this was time-consuming, hard on the drill, chewed up bits, and left a ragged edge that had to be laboriously hand-filed smooth.
I could use a brake -- a conventional sheet-metal bending tool -- but it only allows for bends in one axis, preventing the sort of origami-esque contortions I had in mind. Other folks working with road signs have run up against this one-axis problem, which means they have to do a lot of overlapping and joining of pieces, which is time-consuming, un-ergonomic, materially wasteful, and, well, kind of ugly.
So I pursued a new method, which used the circular saw, set very shallow, to cut grooves into the metal. I then held the signs over a sharp edge (table, stairs, etc.), and beat it with a hammer until it bent. The result was much cleaner and faster than the line-of-holes method. I made a series of chairs this way, as well as metal fruit bowls. This technique -- cutting slits, overlapping triangular flaps, and pinning the folds with machine bolts or rivets -- has led me down a whole new avenue of iterations, each a little more refined than the last.
Recently, I came into a sign, former decor in a friend's apartment. He was moving, and upgrading his look from that dorm-room aesthetic. I took the opportunity to put together a little armchair. Using some of the lessons learned from the Bent Cardboard chair, I designed a plywood "box" frame, made up of four pieces. The two sides come up higher, in this case, to make armrests. The frame was treated with pickling stain, a sort of whitewash, and then polyurethaned.
The road sign itself was 30" square, allowing me to divide it out into two 15" halves. I followed the same general folding scheme as my previous road sign chairs, only adding a small back cutout. However, this sign was of thinner, crappier aluminum, and I had some minor cracking that required the addition of some steel "L" brackets to beef up the back-seat joint. It was then attached to the frame with isolating rubber washers and machine bolts and upholstered in charcoal-gray felt.
Overall, I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. In the front elevation, it is a bit wide, but looks graceful from the side. The back projects, unsupported by wood, allowing for a comfortable amount of flex. It is super-lightweight, with a nice interplay of colors on the sign, the wood, and the cushion.
I am not happy with the arms, which are too low, and the cracking in the back that necessitated the "L" brackets. Some of the sanding was a bit sloppy, careening through the veneer. In the future, I am going to steer clear of crappy big-box store birch plywood, which is expensive and has super-thin veneers, and just stick with construction-grade BC stock. I'll also avoid the back cutout, which weakened the sign without adding to the comfort.
I still love signs, and can't wait to get my hands on another one. Or three. Or twenty.
The daycare fence and H.E.R.O. community garden gave me a chance to experiment with techniques for cutting the signs. Aluminum is fairly soft, and I found a carbide-toothed finishing blade (60 teeth) jacked into a regular circular saw to be a simple, effective solution. We also tried a similar blade in a table saw, but the kickback and strain on the motor was kind of nasty.
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| The Road Sign Lounger. |
Moving forward, I wanted to bend signs to make more complex forms and stiffen the sheets, which are rather floppy in their flat form. I had built a dining table out of a flat sign when I lived at Arcosanti, and engineered a folded chair with a single bent sign back in Baltimore, but both of these were kind of amateur iterations. Experience had shown that a series of 3/8" holes, drilled 1" on center, could form lines of weakness that allowed the signs to bend. However, this was time-consuming, hard on the drill, chewed up bits, and left a ragged edge that had to be laboriously hand-filed smooth.
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| Forget the chair, that's a pretty handsome model . . . |
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| Side view. |
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| Back-seat joint, with velcro for cushions. |
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| Armrest and cushion. Recycled soda-bottle felt, by the way. |
Recently, I came into a sign, former decor in a friend's apartment. He was moving, and upgrading his look from that dorm-room aesthetic. I took the opportunity to put together a little armchair. Using some of the lessons learned from the Bent Cardboard chair, I designed a plywood "box" frame, made up of four pieces. The two sides come up higher, in this case, to make armrests. The frame was treated with pickling stain, a sort of whitewash, and then polyurethaned.
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| Cutting out the frame -- circular saw for long straight cuts, handsaw to hack out the corners. |
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| Assembled with glue and plugged screws. |
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| The box takes shape. |
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| The shell, ready to join with the frame. |
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| Hand-sewing the cushions was rather laborious and a bit messy. |
I am not happy with the arms, which are too low, and the cracking in the back that necessitated the "L" brackets. Some of the sanding was a bit sloppy, careening through the veneer. In the future, I am going to steer clear of crappy big-box store birch plywood, which is expensive and has super-thin veneers, and just stick with construction-grade BC stock. I'll also avoid the back cutout, which weakened the sign without adding to the comfort.
I still love signs, and can't wait to get my hands on another one. Or three. Or twenty.
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