November 1, 2023
Dear Friends,
Arguing with a sign is even more fruitless than arguing with a fence post. Nonetheless, that’s what I’ve been dealing with, and it’s been going on for over a year.
It was sometime last year when I saw a great sign somewhere along the road. It was nicely proportioned, good clear lettering, and sharp coloring. It looked simply made and easy to install. With dimensions about five feet high and five feet across, it was a vinyl sign stretched between and attached to two T-posts, attached at their tops and bottoms. It was advertising some local church event, and it was nicely done. I had to have one.
Mine would say “Welcome to Fox Country Quilts and Retreat” and would have our logo on it. I drew a sketch to try to determine good dimensions for it. Maybe six feet by four feet would work. Took my sketch down to Latson’s here in Commerce and they said they would be able to make that. Before doing so, they created a proof on paper so I could see what it would look like. Too wide, with too much white space on each side of the logo and wording. Five by four looked better.
Only a few days later, they called and said my sign was ready. That was fast, and I loved how it looked. I wanted the sign to be up as high as would be reasonable and to place it about halfway between the road and our retreat building. Bought two T-posts ten feet long and pounded them into the ground about a foot and a half deep. There were grommets on each corner of the sign, so I secured them with rope. Stood back and admired my work.
Shortly after installation I became concerned about the durability of my sign. It looked and felt pretty tough, but the wind thought it was a sail and kept whipping it back and forth. Didn’t take long and three cracks developed in the vinyl. Worse yet, one of the T-posts started leaning over. It needed to be deeper. That was a job for my post driver. I untied the ropes from each corner, move the posts over to stretch the sign a bit tighter, and drove the posts three feet into the ground. Now they felt more solid and like they couldn’t be leaned over so easily. Tied the sign back on them. Good, looks better now.
But the sign was still whipping back and forth, and it wasn’t but a few weeks before one of the ropes broke lose. Have to admit I was using cheap cotton clothesline rope, which of course has declined in quality and strength from clothesline we could buy in the past. Went and bought two more T-posts to attach to additional grommets that were along the top and bottom of the sign. That worked pretty well and greatly reduced the flopping around in the wind.
Not done yet. One of the top corner ropes broke, and that corner of the sign laid over dog-ear fashion across part of the front of the sign. Looked awfully low-grade for a sign that is supposed to represent our shop in a serious high-quality way.
That brings us up to this week. Just got done using wire to tie that corner back up where it can’t shake loose or break . . . . I hope. If the sign continues to win the argument, I’ll replace all of the rope attachment with wire. Will take a good bit of time before the wire will be able to rust through and break . . . . and hopefully these aren’t famous last words.
The call to action for this e-mail is easy enough to figure out. You need to come visit us so you can see our sign looking it’s best, and you need to do so before how it figures its next move for trying to get loose and look dumpy. In short, hope to see you soon!
Chip
