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Glass vs. sand smalt

Hand Lettering topics: Sign Making, Design, Fabrication, Letterheads, Sign Books.

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Tod Swormstedt
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Aug 19, 2004 6:32 am
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Glass vs. sand smalt

Post by Tod Swormstedt »

The museum has a number of vintage smalt signs, and they seem to be divided into two categories: Those with sand smalt (which is dull or flat colored) and those with glass smalt (which has a certain sparkle when exposed to the sun or other light). I make this destinction when doing tours and wonder what y'all think. I also tell visitors that smalt was used to create a contrast between the textured smalt background and the smooth text/copy, making the latter more readable. Any thoughts? Or does this sound B.S.?
Tod Swormstedt
American Sign Museum
Mike Jackson
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Joined: Tue Apr 06, 2004 11:02 pm
Location: Jackson Hole, WY
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Post by Mike Jackson »

Tod,
You might want to do a SEARCH on this Forum for Smalts. There is a lot of information on this topic.

Even better, you might try clicking on this line:
http://www.theletterheads.com/glawson/osmalto.html
It will take you to the Rick Glawson section of TheLetterheads.com where you can read what Rick wrote on the subject.

From my personal perspective, we used sand smalts on smaller panels with finer lettering and glass smalts on the larger sign panels We also did a few signs with glass first, then dumped off the excess once the binder hardened a little, then covered it with sand smalts to fill in the void spots sometimes seen between chunks of glass.

Sand smalts is basically that. Some of of the black material is actually volcanic sand, but many of the colored smalts were made of white sand, died to a specific color. Some were less color fast than others. Glass smalts, normally is made of crushed colored glass, normally will retain the color because it is actually the glass color. Some black glass smalts now being sold is crushed coal slag, or a coal byproduct. We've seen some of it turn gray in the sun after a prolonged period of time.

Mike Jackson
Mike Jackson / co-administrator
Golden Era Studios
Vintage Ornamental Clip art
Jackson Hole, WY

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Lee Littlewood
Posts: 228
Joined: Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:36 pm
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Smalts

Post by Lee Littlewood »

One thing that I think I've seen is that smalt wasn't necessarily only used in high-tone or gold work. We saw a pretty run-of-the-mill sign for a livery stable that looked like it had been smalted but not gilded. My guess is that smalt would help hide the cracks between boards in the early, pre-plywood days. Another method of covering cracks would be to apply a canvas layer over the wood, then paint it solid (with or without smalt).
Out here in the West we don't see many truly old signs; I would expect people in the East to know more about the "casual use" of smalts and other surface treatments.
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