Man, oh, man, oh man.............yet ANOTHER overdue report....

[ctsignguy]

I had been quietly adding some pieces here and there...but i have also been re-entering model railroading, another fun hobby of mine.  The signs will not be forgotten as i still have far too many gaps left to fill.....and here are some of the fillers now!

24x24 aluminum. I know i just acquired the I-95, but i wanted to grab an I-4 (lowest-numbered

Comments

[eightwednesday]

I was actually at the WVa sign shop on Wednesday and we were talking about how a number of new, "high tech" materials have been shot down for use in WVa because we seem to love to vandalize our signs. And then I got to silk screen some curve arrows.

Meanwhile, I have one of the fancy, test corrugated plastic US-40 signs from PA on my living room wall... apparently it stands up poorly to bullets.

[ctsignguy]

Cool...i would love to try to silk some signs, but a lot of places now are going computer stencilling...not as much fun anymore

In Ohio, various companies use those corrugated plastic signs....primarily to cut down on theft (those plastic signs aren't worth 5 bucks in scrap...hardly worth the effort to steal them) and also, if they are damaged or destroyed by a horny 18-wheeler, again, loss is minimal.

I have two of them in my collection...very flimsy!

[eightwednesday]

In WV they only silk the common signs (arrows, chevrons, stop signs, etc) and when they do make them, they're done in batches of a few hundred. The process was remarkably low tech, they were showing us how they also reuse the screens (they've only got about 10 screens that they just reuse).

Everything else is computer etched, when I was in they were doing the so-and-so's memorial bridge signs.

Though as I'm sure you know, WV sends their signs intact to recyclers, however the identity of the recyclers is apparently top secret nowadays?

I'll have to keep my eye out in Ohio for more common use of the plastic signs, in that I can see Lawrence County from my house and all.

[ctsignguy]

Oh, i was told one place by the WVDOT themselves...so when i was down that way a couple of years back, i stopped by this recycler who let it be known that he wasnt going to sell me any signs for three reasons...
1. I needed a letter authorizing me to do so from the head of WVDOT
2. He was NOT going to unstrap a 500-lb pallet just for me to cherry-pick a few signs
3. Many signs had been clipped already (imagine, if you will, a 12 or 16-sided STOP....)

Fortunately, the head of the Sign Shop gave me one sign (I-79)("So your trip wouldnt have been a total waste" he said) and he referred me to a local depot where i picked up a few more signs...

[eightwednesday]

Sadly working with WVDOT has deeply curtailed my ability to lift signs. Though the amount of money they make from the recyclers is a highly guarded secret. I'm pretty sure they could still make more money off of offloading them on eBay. But that's more of my personal protesting.

PennDOT seems friendlier about these matters.

[ctsignguy]

Nice idea, but a DOT chap i chatted with in another state pointed out that there are maybe 250 collectors with half of them truly serious collectors...they would run out of customers rather fast as they sold off signs...

I never had much luck with PennDOT in recent years, but no worries as i have most all the Pennsy signs i need (a cutout Tpke keystone would be nice, but not a necessity)