WWII Letters

[j.gilman]

Greetings all.

I recently found an article about an army surplus store in California that was founded in 1945. Below is a picture of the shop with lots of beautiful letters on the walls and windows. Plain blue collar block style typical for the time period I'm assuming. Anyway, I'm wondering if anybody here knows how they did the letters and has experience with that style of lettering. Specificly the "DOWN GO PRICES", 'VOLUME SALES CO." and "ARMY & NAVY WAR SURPLUS" pieces.


Sorry for the poor quality of the image.


thanks.

J.Gilman

[Doug Fielder]

Hey,

Great Photo! They look like mono width letters, where all the letters are the same width except for the letters W & I, but that is the width of one of the strokes. There is a guy in NJ that bangs stuff out quick like that, on school buses and any low paying quick jobs. I have actually lettered a couple of Meat Trucks for him in that style, very hard to make a pattern from his stuff.
Anyway, figure out the letter width you want and then break it into 3 and have at it. I actually have a picture of my grandfather's hardware store from back in the late 40's or early 50s. My father said that my grandfather used to letter a lot of it himself. I should find that pic and post it here, he was pretty good. He even used to gild his truck doors, but no photos of that.

[George Perkins]

I've rendered styles very similar to that many times. I'm sure there's a name for it but I don't have a clue, flat top gas pipe maybe?
As far as how they did the letters, I use the yardstick width method. This one looks like a two yard stick stroke width letter. A board of the proper size will also work if the letter is taller than 36".From what I can tell, this looks like a pretty nice layout and they probably made a scale sketch for it. From that sketch they got up on the wall and had some basic figures to go by as far as where the letters started. From that starting point the roughed in the letters ( mainly a stick layout for spelling purposes ) then started on the letters themselves. I'll use the letter "A" in Army for an example Hold the yard stick upright, pull the chalk/charcoal down to form the left side of the stroke, move the yard stick over one width and make a tick mark, move it over again and pull the chalk/charcoal down to form the other side of the stroke , now figure the space inbetween the strokes using the same method and move on to the other stroke. Now flip the yardstick sideways and mark the crosstroke on the top in the same manner. Make the marks go all the way out to the outside edges of the letter. You are going to have places where these marks cross over. Place you chalk/charcoal where the inner stroke crosses the top guide line. Now bring the chalk down in a smooth curve to where the mark from the horizontal crosstroke crosses the outer stroke. Do the other side. Now go down a little less than half way and do the center crosstroke.
I hope you can follow this long winded explanation. I really needed a sketch to show how this is done. In the time it took me to type this I could have laid out at least ARMY & NAVY WAR. This is a very mechanical letterstyle and variations of this were favorites of signpainters because of ease of layout. Also, notice that there are a lot of ribs on the facia. The upright nature of this letter style made it a lot easier to paint than something with curved letters in it.

[Mike Jackson]

Check out :
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/urw/futura-display/





It is close. I found slightly different examples in my old books from the '40s and '50s.

Some modification of the style could be done on-the-fly with the yardstick.

Mike Jackson

[Bill Lynch]

George described the technique very well. I would use any flat piece that was close to the stroke I wanted, a yardstick, ruler, triangle, scrap wood whatever. We called it "Stovepipe" lettering.

[j.gilman]

Thanks for the detailed description George. For some reason I didn't think it was that simple. I'll try it out on a smaller scale to get the letter forms down and then go larger. I also hadn't noticed the lines in the facia and how they used them to line up the tops of the counters even. I'm assuming with this style it's also just as simple to keep your basline straight by placing the top or bottom of the yard stick on the same horizontal spot every time.

I'm trying to collect more photos of this stovepipe style to better understand the newances of the letters. I've not been able to find many at all probably because, as Doug mentions, this style was quick and dirty and not something that people considered photo worthy. It's a shame. Would love to see your pictures Doug & anybody else as well.

[Doug Fielder]

Hey,

I will get that picture as well as others when I go back to NJ in 2 weeks.

The StovePipe letterstyle is in the book:
222 Alphabets for All Occasions by Lonnie Tettaton. Published by Nutwood Publishing Co., St. Louis, MO; 1983. 8-1/2 x 11 in., spiral bound, 124 pages

I have the book and it is quite good and shows the strokes of many letterstyles too.

[Si Allen]

In the pic..it was easy to line up the letters due to the horizontal ribs on the building. Otherwise, those old boys would have used a chalk line to snap the top and bottoms. It would have been laid out with a yardstick with a 3:5 or 3:6 ratio (WxH). Keerning was easy.... same as the stroke.

Example... ARMY & NAVY WAR SURPLUS...say 20 ft of letters... count the strokes and spaces 20x12/80 = 3 inch strokes. 6 strokes hih = 18 inch letters. An old walldog would have laid it out that way all square and rounded corners as needed with his fitch.

[Doug Fielder]

Si, thanks for the formula, I will be sure to never forget that one. Got any other formulas you'd like to share with budding sign painters?
So, is it always: L (Feet) x 12 (To break it into inches)= X/ Number of strokes and spaces= Width of strokes and spaces?
Just want to be sure I have it right.

[John Lennig]

Of course, one can't be without the hi-tech Tin Cans of various sizes! For outside corners. Square inside corners.


John

[Doug Fielder]

Oh, yes, I've done that too..... The inside and outside of a roll of tape, Quarts, Pints, Half-Pints and Quarter-Pints..... Paper cups, beer bottles