Tin Beer Signs

The last time I did Always...Patsy Cline, I was able to get a wonderful Schlitz beer neon sign from a friend who is a beer distributor. 

This time around I was hoping I could use the same tactic. Since this show wasn't in Chicago, I couldn't go through the same friend, but I figured I would just contact the distributors who service Door County Wisconsin to see if they would be willing to help (we have a bar on property at the theatre so there was already a bit of a relationship between the theatre and the distributing companies). I made several phone calls and was always able to talk to very helpful-sounding people who assured me that they would pass my message along to the correct person and that I would hear back from them soon.  I would wait a couple days, not hear anything, and then call back again, with the same results. Eventually I decided that I wasn't going to be able to count on getting anything from these companies. We would take anything they were able to give us if they ended up coming through, but in the meantime we were going to explore making our own beer signs. 

The two brands we knew we wanted were Lone Star (because it's a Texas beer) and Schlitz  (because it is mentioned by name in the show). 

For our first try, I found a Lone Star logo online and printed it out as large as I could, I used spray adhesive to attach it to a piece of tin sheeting, and then proceeded to paint over it, hoping to make the colors richer and get an enameled look. It looked okay, but had no dimension to it. Because of the solid layer of paper glued to the tin, it may as well have been a piece of posterboard. 

Our first attempt at adding dimension involved cutting out a piece of lauan to match the sign. After cutting out the full piece, we cut again along the inside border, creating a sort of frame.

The hope was that we could place the tine sign over the lauan cutout and hammer along the edges of the border to create a raised edge. 

Below is the result. It turned out to be very difficult to hold the tin in place over the frame, and very difficult to use a consistent, even swing with the hammer to create the look of a machine punched sign. 

For attempt number 2, we decided that a fully dimensional sign wasn't really what we needed. Just a little bit of dimension and surface variation would probably work. We started over with a new piece of tin, this time with no paper under it. We discovered that a simple ballpoint pen was the perfect tool for creating enough pressure to leave a dent on the line, without risking punching a hole in the thin tin. To do this, we placed the tin on a sheet of foam, so that the pressure was against a softer surface and the tin was able to give way and create the dent we needed when we pressed down.

Since this method doesn't work at all of the design is printed out on paper and applied (the pen just causes the paper to scratch and peel away in places) we needed another method for getting the logos onto the tin. Here is our intern Shannon carefully tracing the logos onto the tin pieces using an overhead projector.

Once the logo was traced in sharpie, the next step was to trace it again with the pen, pressing down hard to create the dents along all the lines. 

Here is the Lone Star sign after pen tracing. 

After the sign was traced and cut out, we started with paint. I had some difficulty painting the Lone Star Sign, because the paint didn't want to stick to the smooth tin. As I tried to add second and third coats of paint, I kept accidentally rubbing away the previous coats of paint with my brush. 

Eventually, with a lot of patience, I was able to get three full coats of paint on the sign, and it looked pretty good. 

Learning from the mistakes of the Lone Star sign, we did things a bit differently on the Schlitz sign. First, I made sure that all of the sharpie lines had been scrubbed off before painting started (I had quite a bit of trouble with the paint absorbing the ink and staining all the way through on the first round). I also had Shannon use some steel wool to roughen up the surface of the tin so the paint would adhere better, and added some sealer to the paints so that the layers of paint might glide on a bit more easily. 

after both signs were finished, and sealed with several layers of spray shellac for shine, I came back with some rough brown rusty paint around the edges and in select other places on the signs to make them seem older and more beat up. 

And finally, here they are on set, collaged with other beer signs, our sconces, photos of other musical acts from the time, and lots of snapshots, postcards and news clippings.

And with our production manager Sarah pointing out her wedding photo that had made it onto the wall :)

Honky Tonk Sconces

These western honky tonk sconces were created for the production of Always...Patsy Cline running right now at Peninsula Players Theatre. I went into the process thinking I would purchase something, and very quickly discovered that nothing like the designer's research image existed anywhere I could find. 

I briefly toyed with the idea of purchasing a set of 6 of the most basic sconces I could find, and altering them, until the master electrician mentioned that he was hoping to clean out the chandelier stock this year. We were able to find a particularly ugly one (unfortunately I forget to get a photo) and cut the arms off of it, The resulting pieces, below, were my starting point. 

Cutting the pieces off resulted in some pretty bent up ends.

To flatten them out, I tightened each one as far as I could into the bench vice in the shop, resulting in nice flat metal arms. 

To create a more substantial base, we used these PVC reducing size connectors, painted copper. 

And used liquid nails to attach them to the lamp bases. 

This stamped metal grating is available in many hardware stores and is often used for radiator covers. I cut narrow strips of it, and then cut a pattern into the top. Then we wrapped it around the PVC pieces and secured it with a couple screws through the grate and into the PVC on the back side. 

To finalize the base, we needed one more horizontal layer. We cut some ethafoam insulation into quarters and painted it brown. Ethafoam does not take paint well, but I had heard that you could prep it for paint by spraying it with spray adhesive and then letting it dry completely until it isn't tacky anymore. I tried that this time and it worked beautifully. 

I secured the ethafoam with more liquid nails (and a rubberband to hold everything in place while the glue dried), and the base of the sconce was finished. 

For the shade of the sconce, I found these little tin bowls online. 

 We used a hole saw to cut a circular opening in the top and placed it on a stock glass hurricane. 

Finally we needed to mount the sconces to the wall. We cut six plywood circles and used the router to create a detailed outside edge. 

Then cut out the individual spokes of a wagon wheel. The metal chandelier arm was able to attach to the back side of the wagon wheel with a couple screws, and then we only needed one screw through the front when it came time to attach the sconces to the walls of the set. 

And here is the finished product, installed and all lit up. I think they are kind of hilarious and adorable. 

Never be Afraid to Ask...Neon bar Sign

Another last minute prop added to a show was a neon, Schlitz bar sign for Always Patsy Cline. In my initial conversation with the director I had asked if he wanted anything like this to help signify the transition for kitchen to bar, and he didn't think he did. After some rehearsal though, he decided that is would be fun, and just the extra touch we needed. Unfortunately that left me without an extended period of time to lurk on ebay to find a good deal. I looked into some "buy it now" options, but they were all pretty far out of our budget.

The stage manager mentioned he could get us one on rental from a theatre he worked with, but in the end, once we multiplied the per-week rental by the length of our run, it would have been almost the cost of buying one.

Eventually it dawned on me that I already had the connection I needed to get a sign. One of my very best friends works for one of the biggest beer distributors in Chicago. He had mentioned, while we were hanging out draining Schlitz bottles for show props (it's a hard life), that Schlitz was one of their beers. I called him up, told him what I needed, and he left me a sign on my front porch the next morning. We were able to use the sign free of charge as long as we didn't damage it. It worked out great! Free advertising for Schlitz and a free beautiful piece of set decoration for us.

Juke Box Rehab

I rented this juke box for a production of Always Patsy Cline. It's a great piece, mostly hollowed out, with a doors to make it look like an old 1950's fridge on the back (so we can shift easily from bar to kitchen). It has, however, seen better days and it needed a lot of love before I could put it on stage. 

The biggest problem was the four plastic panels on the front. The top two were plexiglass, painted with gold stripes and so full of cracks that they were pretty much laminated together with packing tape.

The bottom panels were made of corrugated plastic (which I am fairly sure was not the original material, but a fix someone had used in a previous show). It had scratches and paint marks all over it.

To replace them I needed something translucent, but I didn't want to go transparent (you can see in the previous images that the red party bulbs were visible behind the cracked plexiglass).
My first thought was to go with muslin, and to paint some sort of gold pattern onto it to break up the large expanses of white.
When I ran that idea past the set designer he suggested that maybe instead of painting we use radiator screen to get our pattern and provide us with a more rigid structure.

Radiator screen is a thin patterned metal available at most hardware stores. It is easy to cut with a pair of tin-snips and comes in a variety of patterns. It is not especially cheap ($30-$40 per sheet), but I was planning on making an investment in this prop so I could afford two sheets for this project.
I traced the pieces I was replacing onto the screen and cut them out.

Then I used spray adhesive to laminate some white taffeta I found in stock onto the back.

The hardest part was inserting them because they fit so tightly and the curves were awkward

On the plus side, the fit was so tight that once I got the pieces in, all I needed was a little hot glue to hold it there. Hot glue was also preferable because when I return the prop, if they decide to go back to the plexi panels, it should be able to pull right off of the metal without doing any permanent damage.

There are a few dents and creases in the screen that I couldn't get rid of, and I'm not sure how I could have avoided them considering all the twisting and pulling that was required to get the pieces in place.

But once the lights are on you hardly notice, and I think it turned out pretty well.