Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Firewood,  Painting

Signs For Our Firewood Delivery Truck

We’ve been delivering firewood for a few years now, upgrading our equipment as we go along. We did buy a larger truck and were delivering three cords at a time but found out we were over weight…darn it… so it could really only take two cords at a time.

Sold that truck and bought a smaller truck that can also carry two cords. While the bin has mesh on the upper half, we decided to make signs for the lower half of the bin.

20220617_100733 aluminium bin loading firewood crates with skidsteer
Front end of new aluminum bin.

Like with most wood projects, we headed to the sawmill. We happen to have several wood cants drying for a while ready to be sliced, so we picked one that was close to the size we needed.

Signs for the firewood bin.
Great to have these on hand.

We cut off four boards at one inch thick each. In the workshop we measured, then squared off the ends.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Nice re-chargeable saw.

For good measure we ran them through the planer, then Jim sanded each board.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Sanding the boards.

We decided to paint the signs black with white lettering, but once in the paint room I quickly realized the black paint wasn’t exterior grade so since we had an almost full gallon of navy paint, navy it is.

I started by coating all the boards with two coats of white paint.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
First coat.

Jim had printed out our words and numbers so using tracing paper, traced those onto the white painted board.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Measuring for placement of the letters.

Instead of painting the white onto the navy, I decided to do the reverse and paint navy around the white.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Painting the navy.

It took two coats and turned out good. Only thing is it took forever, and it would have to be done 3 more times!!! I know I don’t have the time or patience for that so Jim suggested we print out the numbers and letters again, this time on vinyl. Smart or what!!

With one finished I painted the other three with two coats of navy paint. We then put a coat of clear finish over the navy hoping to give these the best chance at a long life.

We gave them a long drying period, then got to work with me cutting out the numbers and letters while Jim pressed them into place on each board. We used the green painters tape to line things up.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Vinyl lettering.

These signs looked huge indoors but it was now time to install these on the side of the bin.

First up was a little surgery on the aluminum to get rid of those tabs so the signs will sit flush.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
A bit of grinding.

Then Jim predrilled the holes on the bin and the boards.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Pre drilling holes.

And…

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
More holes.

Time to screw the boards to the bin.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Screwing the board to the bin with his eyes closed??

Wanna see?

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Turned out good
Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Happy with them.

Enough admiring our work…time to load.

Building a sign for firewood delivery truck.
Back to work.

Hopefully the vinyl holds up to the weather. If not…back to the drawing board for plan C.

Later.

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