Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Non-Petro Discussions Non-petro Discussion and Showcase Salvaging a vintage motel sign

Hard days work today salvaging what we could of a very classic (and damn cool!) motel sign from the '60s. Full of pink, red, and orange neon. City is getting ready to tear it down unfortunately, got permission to salvage what we can before she goes down.

Cool thing about this sign is, back in the early '70s, my father made a nearly identical sign to this for their first motel - the Town & Country.

This is also a very good cure for fear of heights! This sign is nearly 45 feet tall.

Wow where's that going up? That will be cool once she is re-assembled and lit up.
Looks like it was on the set of the Jetsons.
Paul way to go on the taking the initiative on this reclamation.

Fred, we are just going to rebuild the sections we can reasonably do. Doing the whole sign is too much $$$. We're going to work on the star, the channel letters, the title sign, and the no vacancy sign. Im imaging it being mounted on a wall somewhere? I've only been at this a couple days, and the sign is about to be torn down.

All done taking down what we can on this sign before the city turns it into a reclamation pond.

Was searching for old images of this sign, and came across this video... Had no idea I should be looking up at the sky, I was more afraid of the ground! We were probably easy pickings for the aliens being 45 feet up in the boom too. The unexpected dangers of our hobby!

https://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=e6igNiVZ2Bs

Told you straight from the Jetsons!

Very cool sign and I'm glad your saving it! Thanx for sharing.

Did get some work done on this sign before I need to take a break from it for a while. Have the VACANCY sign ready, kind of gives us a pattern for everything else, big project for sure.

Worked on the star some too, the star will have four layers of cascading neon built into it, should be really cool to see it operating again!

Glad a lot of this sign is porcelain.

Cat seems to like turning this sign off and on too!

Worked on the star a little more, first picture is plotting out the specific location of the neon and which circuit each tube is on (there are four). Neon cascades on a timer.

Second picture star stripped down to the original porcelain and cleaned up. All the insulators removed, cleaned, and rewired too. We put the star into a crate so it can be worked on more easily when time permits. Should make putting the neon, transformers, and timers in a whole lot easier!

Looking good Paul! Can't wait to see the cascading neon on this guy.

Can't wait to see them lit up.

Was this sign at Ladysmith?

It's from Green Bay

There is a group looking to save the rest of the sign...would be cool if it were all put back together again.
http://www.wearegreenbay.com/story/d/sto...ao0upsKlLFElHrA

...good luck with that now...