Had one more little display project in mind; I have been looking for a Diet Coke sign to hang in the garage, but not much available. ( Lot of Coke signage out there but very little Diet Coke)
Finally found a thoroughly trashed Mexican Diet Coke flange sign, so I focused on making a retro looking mount that I could use now and maybe upgrade when I find a better sign in the future.
Here’s the inspiration:
I dug through my bucket of drops and came up with some 1/8” x 1/2” cold rolled, and 1/8” by 3/4” and 1/8” x 1” hot rolled flat bar, so I was good to go without buying anything.
My friend Ron had given me a HF bender- he had never used it and wanted the shelf space so he dropped it off at my place last year. Thought this might be a good excuse to break it out of storage and try it out.
It had been wrapped in newspaper when he initially put it away; apparently that was 18 years ago!
Got the two scrolls rolled, then did the bends in my vise. Took a little finessing angles to get everything to fit; the pieces get bolted rather than welded together. The original was riveted but that’s not something I wanted to take the time to master last week.
Had to weld up two little U- brackets to hang the sign; these took longer than they should have, check out the little 1-1/2” Veritas square- it’s really handy for small work.
Gave it a quick coat of satin black and the frame was ready to hang.
The Diet Coke sign is really rough- paint was flaking off, someone had patched up the rust spots with red and white electrical tape, and the flange was torn halfway off. I shot it with a couple of coats of satin lacquer to keep the paint from flaking and used it as is, didn’t try to restore it. It definitely looks like it might have been hanging in an old Mexican gas station.
This project gave me a retro hanger and eliminated the broken flange- buzzed that off In about 15 seconds with my M12 cutoff tool.
Found a little piece of U-channel in my scrap bin that worked great as flange hanger for the sign, hit that with a coat of red implement paint I had on hand.
Turned out OK; fun little afternoon project in between the traffic light and what’s next…
