Door Sign Reference

[hb88banzai]

... and then the whole thing glazed in white.

I believe 'glazed' in this context refers to the fitting of the panel into its frame, and not a surface treatment.

Don't you think that since it's under the heading "MATERIAL AND LETTERING" that it's more likely to be referring to the other definition of glazing - "Cover with a glaze or similar finish"?

Also, I would think that since the lettering was printed directly on to the front of the Opal Perspex that it would be almost mandatory to have some kind of clear top coat to help seal the edges and protect the surface of the letters, that side being exposed directly to the weather and handling when mounted. It would also help protect the Perspex itself a bit, which is notoriously vulnerable to scratching unless a type with special hard surface coatings.

On the "Armourclad Plate" glass version (and previous Perspex signs that also used clear material instead of Opal), the glazing could refer to either a clear coat to protect the lettering (printed in reverse on the back side) from the subsequent "flood" layer of translucent white paint (and perhaps as primer for it) or to the white layer itself.

[deck5]

... and then the whole thing glazed in white.

I believe 'glazed' in this context refers to the fitting of the panel into its frame, and not a surface treatment.

Don't you think that since it's under the heading "MATERIAL AND LETTERING" that it's more likely to be referring to the other definition of glazing - "Cover with a glaze or similar finish"?

I guess it's possible.  It doesn't seem likely to me, though.

[hb88banzai]

Blowup of a bit of detail of part of chriskingbees' shard --



A couple things of note here:

Where the big chip is missing from the "C", note that there also appears to be a change of color and texture in the surrounding area, exactly as if some clear coat had come off with the bit of blue paint.

Also, on the whole surface of the shard there is a mottling which looks very much like worn and weathered top coat. It certainly doesn't look like a typical, or even heavily scratched, acrylic (Perspex) surface.

While such a top coat could have been applied at any time in its history, on other portions of the shard it looks like this surface has yellowed with age, indicating it was done some time ago. Take a look at the highest resolution photos of the shard on Starcross' flickr photostream. Could be wrong, but certainly looks like evidence of a fairly old clear top coat "glaze" to me.

[hb88banzai]

On a different note - when looking at good photos of extant examples of 67A signage (including the shard), there are some differences between them and Drawing 90316.

Most of the extant signs agree very closely with each other, but differ from the drawing in the same ways (the Edinburgh Museum Post's sign doesn't really count when it comes to fine details as it shows evidence of retouching, but it's still largely the same). The letters are all bolder and smoother with less blocky serifs on the actual signs while still being crisp with full line width variation, so this really can't be explained away as being the result of paint spreading during the screen printing process. Also, some of the letter spacing is a bit different, and even some of the letters are subtly different sizes compared to the drawing, but still quite consistent when compared to each other.

While it is clear from this that the silkscreen for the real signs was derived from the Drawing 90316, it appears (as with almost all things Post, Box, and especially TARDIS) things diverged a bit from the plans when the items were actually made by the builders and printers. There are enough differences to suggest the whole thing was redrawn using the Drawing 90316 merely as a guide when preparing the camera-ready art.

[Mark]

Fair points HB, also the drawing 90316 is dated 1953 so presumably this is either a copy of the earlier one or a re-make. This would of course account for some variations between signs we have seen.

[starcross]

Most of the extant signs agree very closely with each other, but differ from the drawing in the same ways (the Edinburgh Museum Post's sign doesn't really count when it comes to fine details as it shows evidence of retouching, but it's still largely the same).

The Edinburgh Museum sign, a little information on this sign example.
The police post comes from Paisley Scotland, and is built to the 1963 PA.No3 design details (The non-bracketed lantern "steps" gives it away).

Knowing what I know now about the design of the signs, i wish I had paid more attention to its details.
I have below photos of the sign taken in 2009, the front has been available on my site for ages, but the back has not.
See how the flash shows that "glazing" effect we have come to recognize as original signage. The letters are raised on the back, then covered by the white.

I honestly can't say if it was glass or perspex however, I don't recall ever touching the sign.

In regards to retouching, in terms of condition it is a bit dirty but is in fantastic condition, I doubt it has been restored or retouched at all.
If you meant that the style is slightly different, well a few characters are slightly thicker like the top of the T or the bottom of the L but it is overall very close.

Larger
Larger
Larger

Close up Movie of the sign

[hb88banzai]

Ah, I see what caused the differences now and why I thought it might have been retouched at the time.

I had assumed that because there were no marks on the letters and many of the letters have noticeable differences in details and spacing (letters are more blocky and generally less crisp and even) that it must have been retouched. I had not realized that it was a back-printed version of the sign. In fact, before seeing the Spec sheet you just posted I had assumed they were all front printed on Perspex like every other one we've seen. A back-printed sign would require the preparation of an entirely different screen for printing, using different camera-ready art, so differences are inevitable.

In looking at it again, the Edinburgh Museum sign is actually much closer to the Drawing 90316 letter shapes than the front printed Opal Perspex versions. In fact, this sign and the drawing are almost identical save that the letters are a bit bolder on the actual sign, but considering the other indications that this particular sign's screen print was a bit heavy on the paint this could be mostly paint spread. (It should prove to be an interesting experiment to make a screen from the original Drawings and see if we can replicate this sign or if it would require making the letters a little bolder before burning the image on the screen.)

Cool - since seeing the spec sheet I was wondering if we had an example of this sign done on glass, and it looks like we do.

The best photos I've seen showing the entire front-printed Opal Perspex version are the one's on Robert Ore's flickr photostream (rob redphonebox.info) of the sign on the Amberley Museum Post --



You can see the high resolution version of this photo on his photostream (right-click on the image in the photostream and you can select the original resolution): http://www.flickr.com/photos/robert_punk/3477359909/in/photostream/

Lots of other great photos of this Post on there as well.

The second best example I've seen of the whole front-printed sign is the one in the private collection of the gentleman Starcross and I just sourced P.A. 2 phone door frames from --



Hopefully we can get him to make some 600dpi scans of his signs some day.

[DoctorWho8]

Actually, you already know him.  That guy is Starcross.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[hb88banzai]

No, sorry, apparently I wasn't clear - I was referring to the person (a gentleman named Mick) who both Starcross and I had sourced the doors from, not the person known as Starcross on this forum (and elsewhere). He has a couple of original Police Post door signs and several original top signs of various vintages, all of which would be very useful to have scans of.

[DoctorWho8]

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2012/11/bonhams-201112152008.html
Seems what might be the original door sign to the original TYJ prop is now being auctioned.  Based on the report, the door sign was given to the CGI place that did the McCoy title sequence.  They had it in their possession ever since. And here we all thought it went missing for good.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

[evil bob]

It has "and"s instead of "&"s.

[Scarfwearer]

You don't get a much better reference than this.

Crispin

[Rassilons Rod]

I couldn't have put it better myself, Crispin!

[galacticprobe]

Nice clean shot of that PTO panel! According to the Table on Page 1 this is from the TY-J MkI. (The Table shows the TY-J MkII as having "&" rather than "AND".) I'd say put this photo in the Image column of that Table to get a really clear reference for it, if that hasn't been done already.

Dino.

[solidbronze]

Not sure if anybody cares, but the Hudolin phone panel font is probably a variant of ITC Souvenir Light - the chief change is the tail on the U.

Andrew