Custom Backlit Sign - Polished Stainless
Welding has been part of my life for the better part of the last decade, and in all that time, my general policy has been to avoid stainless steel projects like the PLAGUE, because, compared to carbon steel, it is hyper finnicky. For this project, I had to put on my big boy pants and tackle the damn stainless.
My client for this custom stainless steel sign is a rad wedding venue up in historic Stillwater, Minnesota. The sign detailed in this post is a smaller 4x4’ polished stainless version of a huge 8x8’ aluminum sign that will be going on the face of the building in a month or so.
Most of my signs are one contiguous piece so they can be easily mounted to a backer, OR they’re designed in such away that mounting studs can either be visible, or welded to the back of the sign, with the weld blemish simply ground down and coated with a paint or powder coat. Polished stainless steel is a different animal…removing TIG and MIG welding blemishes is a time consuming multi step process that I wanted to avoid…at first I wasn’t entirely sure HOW I would avoid welding, but I was confident I could find a way…after I procrastinated the trouble shooting by beginning by welding up the steel armature that the sign would actually hang on to.
Here was the starting point, as I had just pulled it from laser cutting.
Please note the Novacel film…this is expressly to protect a machine-finished surface condition, like a mirror polish or a #4 brushed finish, for example. This sign began with a #4 brushed finish, but I ended up going with something a little cooler, in my opinion…but more on that later. For the moment, let’s look at my procrastination project.
I wanted a “floating sign” illusion.
The puzzle pieces of the stainless sign were fairly wide, about 8”, so the armature material I selected was 1.5x.5” carbon box tubing.
”But carbon steel will rust, and can cause rust spots on stainless steel!” Yes I’m very aware of these facts, which is why the armature received an automotive primer and a white enamel topcoat…also the stainless sign pieces were stepped away from the armature by about 2”! No rust worries here!
…In all, this little side project took about an hour, between the design, cutting, welding, and painting…with it complete, I had to go back to reality and figure out how in THE HELL I was going to attach studs to the back of the stainless steel without welding them.
Well, I had the bright idea to use a two part epoxy.
To make a long and uninteresting story into a short and uninteresting story, I did a stress test on the 2 part epoxy, and it failed miserably. It was strong with straght-on pulling forces, but the shearing force of holding up a sign was a non starter. I needed to weld the studs to the sign. From here, I’m sure it’s not a difficult story to anticipate. All of the dimples from welding needed to be ground down, and the whole sign needed to be refinished to that classic #4 brushed stainless…except, that’s not what I did.
Back in the day, when I was very first learning to weld, I spent 4-6 hours per day running an angle grinder, finishing carbon steel and stainless steel pipe flanges. I remembered how AMAZING the parts looked when they received an 80 grit finish. If done properly, they were almost iridescent, the way the striations caught and threw light around. I was definitely not going to go as course as 80 grit, but when doing a cool sign with color changing LEDs on it, having a little iridescence on the stainless would not go amiss. So here’s where we landed…with one of the coolest signs to come out of my shop, and one that hammers the “floating sign” illusion out of the park.
