Signs Part 1

I find I'm already using up titles for each blog too fast and its not worth the time to try to come up with something new each time.  So to keep it simple, I will just use "Part #" after each title - Like Blast Furnace A - Part 4 or Coke Works - Part 7, ...etc. 

This blog is about signage.  A couple of things I've been simultaneously been working on, all in the Port section of my layout - a sign for the end of the coal dock;  a sign for the top of a cement distributor; and finally a Miller Engineering animated billboard kit for the top of a backdrop building.  

On the right you can see the attempt at a coal dock sign - basically a Lackawanna logo on a piece of styrene.  I found the image online and adjusted the print size to fit and glued it to a piece of .030 styrene.  I still need to paint the back and glue it to the end of the coal dock structure.  I might also arrange some sort of lighting for it.  

Behind the Lackawanna sign you can see my Atlas sign.  I scratchbuilt this - the letters are .020 styrene, cut from sheets using letters printed out using Word.    The vertical and diagonal supports are .125 Evergreen I beams, with .080 Evergreen Channels as horizontals.  The diagonal bracing is .060 Evergreen angle.  It is shown with a coat of primer.  The letters will be painted red and the framework probably grimy black.   The prototype for this sign, and the facility under it is located in Newark, NJ on the Passaic River.   The prototype sign was actually neon and visible from the New Jersey Turnpike.  It is still standing, although not lit at night.   The facility was built by the Atlas Cement Company, later Universal Atlas, to store portland cement for distribution in the New York area.  It received cement via a barge unloading facility on the Passaic from I believe the Atlas plant in Hudson, NY.   It, as with the Walthers' structure, has a covered rail facility.  With the prototype this may have been for loading railcars for local shipment.   With my structure, railcars would be unloaded, brought from inland facilities.  

Above is a video of a Miller Engineering GE billboard kit.  They are a bit pricey and I wasn't sure how the sign would look as the entire thing is a sheet of plastic.  I am pleased with the look.  It is shown on an unfinished back ground structure kitbashed from a Walthers Hardwood Furniture kit.  So far I've modified the structure,  and added bracing and floors.  I plan on lighting the interior so I need to work a bit more on that and then paint and weather the structure.