outdoor sign advice?

shootuadeal

i plan on making a large outdoor sign to place a little ways out of town to advertise to motorist where we are, which is right along the highway but we dont have a very big sign on our building to get their attention.

anyway i dont want to take a piece of plywood and paint it or something stupid like that, i want something that will last for several years before it starts looking like crap. one idea i have is my dad has several 4X8 sheets of 1/2inch plastic that he was planning on making a sign with for a seperate venture. with that what could i put on there that would last a long time? paint with some sort of clear coat, thought about having a large vinyl decal made up also as we have them on our semis and fuel trucks and they never seem to peel or fade or anything but i dont know if they stick to plastic very well.

any ideas?

7RiverMan7

http://www.custommadedoodads.com/

With a plasma cutter you could make your own steel sign

yoshmyster

I always wanted a bill board. Put one on your property (if that can bee seen from the highway). With a big arrow pointing down with lettering stating "You need to be here".

Colt Super

With a transporter, you could automatically beam them right to your parking lot.

I have gotten a lot of business that way.

Doug

cnsay

We had a local sign company make one for our location, it is thin aluminum honeycomb and has been up for about six years without any problem. Price was a little steep if I recall. I did't have to pay, just help install.

shootuadeal

just so happened a guy that owns a body shop intown stopped in and i discussed it with him. sounds like if i take one of those 4X8 sheets of plastic he can make some vinyl lettering/graphics with a 15 year warranty and put them on there for 200-300 dollars. it was such a bargain i may do a couple of signs then put them in a series.

thanks for the suggestions, the property it will be going on is owned by my dad and is right along the same highway we are on about a mile away so it is a good fit[:)]

Mercury

Easiest thing to do is paint some plywood, and attach a vinyl banner to it. Make sure to get the grommets every two feet or so, and attach ALL of them, with washers on the screw heads. It'll look 100x better than anything you can do yourself. Mine last about 10 years or so, and thats in the AZ sun!

Fairly cheap, too. A "real" sign will cost you $10k or so, a banner of the same size will cost $200.

You can find them online cheapest, usually. I have a place that gives me a discount because I do a LOT of business with them.

Merc

yoshmyster

shootuadeal - It'll be cool to see the series of signs like "Berma Shave" ads.

trapguy2007

A special plywood called MDO is what you need .
It is made for the sign industry .
It is resin impregnated with a kraft paper face .
It comes good 1 face or both .

aglore

Go to your local boat dealer and get some of those vinyl letters and numbers that are used for a boat when it is registered.

k.stanonik

Trapguy has it right, I grew up in the sign business and we used MDO, coat it both sides and edges to seal the and have someone hand letter it. The Billboards we did lasted up to 10 yrs befor needing redone.

Rocky Raab

Whatever you make it of, PLEASE have somebody who really can spell proof your lettering. Nothing turns business away faster than a sign with poor spelling or punctuation. One glance, and people ask themselves: "That business can't even spell. Why would I trust them with my ..."

Unless, that is, you only want illiterate mouth breathers as customers.