Letterhead Geezers Gathering in Northwest Minnesota

This story appeared in Sign Builder Illustrated magazine. 

By Jim Hingst

From August 2 to August 5, 2018 Butch “Superfrog” Anton and his wife Sandy hosted their third Letterhead Geezer Gathering at their home in Lake Park, MN.  Along with educational seminars, attendees had the opportunity to enjoy the pleasant weather in the scenic Detroit Lakes vacationland of Northwest Minnesota.  

Butch and Sandy Anton hosted the 3^rd annual Letterhead Geezer Gathering at their home in  Lake Park, MN. The event featured seminars on glass gilding, carving and lettering and pinstriping.

Much of the credit for the success of the Geezer Gathering belongs to Sandy Anton. During the three days of the event she spent most of her time in the kitchen cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for all of the attendees. I am willing to bet that many of the sign makers at the gathering showed up just to enjoy Sandy’s scrumptious cooking.

Sandy Anton spent most of her time in the kitchen cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for all of the attendees.

The 2018 Geezer Gathering featured seminars on glass gilding, carving and lettering and pinstriping. Barbara Schilling from Anoka, MN conducted the glass gilding class. Her demonstration included producing a two tone gilded glass panel. In her class Barbara described her gilder’s checklist and cheat sheet that she uses.

Veteran sign maker, Barbara Schilling, conducted a glass gilding class covering different techniques to produce a two-tone gild.

“Most sign makers don’t do glass gilding regularly,” Schilling says. “There are very specific steps that you must follow to perform a job correctly. So that I don’t forget any of these critical steps, I have developed a cheat sheet for myself outlining the procedure.”

Barbara Schilling also explains that “before setting out on a new job, make sure that you have all of the tools and materials that you need. If you forgot something back at the shop after arriving at the site, you are usually out of luck.” Schilling points out that much of the equipment and supplies needed for gold leaf work is very specialized. You can’t run down to local 7/11 or Ace Hardware and pick up a gilder’s tip or gold leaf size.

During her gold leaf seminar, Schilling described several different techniques that you can use to create a two-tone gild. She also displayed several finished panels for the attendees.

“One way to create a two-tone effect is to use two colors of gold leaf, such as combining 18 karat Lemon Gold with 23 karat gold leaf,” Shilling says. “That’s not the only way to create a faux effect in glass gilding. You can also gild part of the job with water size to produce a mirror finish and gild other parts using an oil size to create a matte finish.”

Some of the other interesting effects that Schilling explained included gilding on chipped glass. Schilling describes how you can also create an interesting texture mixing equal parts of Damar varnish, quick rubbing varnish and Res-n-gel. “After applying the mixture on glass you can swirl it using the end of a lettering brush handle,” says Schilling. “After the scrolled texture hardens you can gild over it, which creates an interesting effect.”

Pinstriper Kit Kat

Butch Anton and Mark Ripley, owner of Ripley’s Ol Skool Pinstriping in Olathe, Kansas, devoted much of their time instructing the future sign painters on how to hand letter and pinstripe. In addition to explaining painting techniques, the two geezers tutored others on job layout, tools of the trade, brush care and color selection. Butch emphasized the importance of practicing the fundamental skills and learning from your mistakes.

Mark Ripley, owner of Ripley’s Ol Skool Pinstriping in Olathe, Kansas, taught the fundamentals of striping to future sign makers and old geezers.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” explains Butch. “The key is to understand what caused a failure. That’s what we call a learning experience. You should never let a mistake discourage you from trying new products or new techniques. You should always be willing to discover what you can and cannot do with products.”

After conducting a training session on the basics of pinstriping, Mark Ripley pinstriped a 1935 two door Ford sedan. “Pinstriping on panels is good practice,” Ripley says. “The real test is when you actually pinstripe a car. That when the rubber hits the road.”

Rather than painting panels, the real test of a pinstriper’s skill is actually striping a car, which Mark Ripley demonstrated at the gathering.

In pinstriping the Ford, Ripley used Du Pont Hot Hues urethane paint. As part of his demonstration, he explained how to properly prep a vehicle surface and layout the job. He also showed the procedure he uses to mix and match a color. In this particular case, Mark had to match the green, which was painted on the wheel hubs – not an easy task.

“Working with urethanes is a lot different that working with lettering enamels, because the chemistries of  the two paints are completely different,” says Ripley. “With urethanes you always need a hardener. The advantage is that finished product is much more durable than lettering enamel.”

Maris Shilling and Butch Anton also provided attendees with instruction on carving both incised and raised lettering in high density urethane panels. In teaching carving Maris and Butch explained tools needed, job layout, and priming and painting carved HDU. Coastal Enterprises, manufacturer of Precision Board High Density Urethane signboards, provided materials for the attendees of the gathering to use.

Maris Schilling showed other sign makers how to carve incised letters as well as how to sharpen carving gouges.

 “What I like about the Precision Board materials is that they have a complete system of products matched for compatibility,” says Anton. The Precision Board product line includes an assortment of different densities of HDU along with  adhesives, texturing materials, primers and paints which are compatible with the signboard. “The people at  Coastal Enterprises are also very responsive,” he says. “When you have questions, they get back to you right away with answers you can depend on."

Geezer Gathering host, Butch Anton, painting a HDU carving. He endorses the Precision Board line of products, which includes an assortment of different densities of HDU along with  adhesives, texturing materials, primers and paints.

After priming an HDU carving, you can finish the decoration using sign enamels.

In addition to Precision Board, other vendors, who helped sponsor the Geezer Gathering included Ronan Paint, Rapid Tac and DuPont. These generous companies provided samples of their products for the attendees for use during the event.

As the Geezer Gathering was wrapping up, Butch Anton captained his pontoon boat treating the attendees to a tour of Big Cormorant Lake, which adjoins his three acre estate. The maritime excursion capped off the enjoyable and informative three-day get together.

 A view of Big Cormorant Lake from the Anton homestead. 

Do You Have Questions or Comments?

About Jim Hingst: Sign business authority on vehicle wraps, vinyl graphics, screen printing, marketing, sales, gold leaf, woodcarving and painting. 

After fourteen years as Business Development Manager at RTape, Jim Hingst retired. He was involved in many facets of the company’s business, including marketing, sales, product development and technical service.

Hingst began his career 42 years ago in the graphic arts field creating and producing advertising and promotional materials for a large test equipment manufacturer.  Working for offset printers, large format screen printers, vinyl film manufacturers, and application tape companies, his experience included estimating, production planning, purchasing and production art, as well as sales and marketing. In his capacity as a salesman, Hingst was recognized with numerous sales achievement awards.

Drawing on his experience in production and as graphics installation subcontractor, Hingst provided the industry with practical advice, publishing more than 190 articles for  publications, such as  Signs Canada, SignCraft,  Signs of the Times, Screen Printing, Sign and Digital Graphics and  Sign Builder Illustrated. He also posted more than 500 stories on his blog (hingstssignpost.blogspot.com). In 2007 Hingst’s book, Vinyl Sign Techniques, was published.  Vinyl Sign Techniques is available at sign supply distributors and at Amazon. 

Slides of Jim's Artwork

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