Signposts to the Caravelle "Bluebird"

Suomeksi

The Tuesday Club received a request from the Aviation Museum Society’s Caravelle team in Turku to make two signposts. The signs would guide the visitors to the Aviation Museum Society’s Caravelle III OH-LEA Bluebird, which is situated by the Turku Airport terminal building. The permit to install signposts had been obtained from Finnavia, the governing authority in the airport area.

We answered in the affirmative to the Turku Team, so on to it. The Tuesday Club was in a good position because we already had a vector model of the word “Caravelle”, in the appropriate font style, after the restoration of two tow bars. We had taped the word Caravelle to both towbars.

On the basis of the sign measurements obtained from Turku, model prints and model images were drawn. The signs will be made of aluminium sheet, painted, and the text will be taped. At the stem of the sign, a looped square symbol (St John’s arms) denoting a place of interest, will be placed. We’ll make the signs to resemble the official signs denoting a place of interest. The background colour of the signs will be brown. The text and the looped squares will be in white.

We acquired 3 mm thick aluminium plate, cut to the measures of the signs, i.e. one 18 cm x 100 and the other 189x150 cm. The aluminium plates were ordered and fetched from Uudenmaan Teräsleikkaus Oy. The end of the shorter sign was cut to arrow shape with an angle grinder, after which the cutting surfaces of the arrow and the edges of both the aluminium signs we ground smooth.

We searched the brown shade for the signs on the internet. The shade was found as a printing code, because the modern way with traffic signs is to print straight on the aluminium. The printing code was changed with a transformation software to respond the commonly used RAL-shades used in paints. We mixed accordingly the Isotrol- paint we used.

Photo: Mårten Juslin

For the painting the aluminium plates were ground with an abrasive pad and fine sanding paper, after which grease was removed from the surfaces.

Photo: Mårten Juslin

Both signs were first painted with adhesive primer on both sides. Priming was done with spray paint. After the primer had dried the signs were lightly sanded and painted with brown Isotrol. After the topcoat paint had dried, the signs were sanded once again and given another coat of paint.

The tapes for texts and the looped St John’s arms were made as outside work in a decal firm. For that purpose, the vector presentations for the Caravelle-text and the looped squares were sent to the firm. When we received the Caravelle and looped square decals, they were fastened on the surfaces of the signs according to the drawings.

Photos: Ismo Matinlauri

Lähettäjän osoite:
helsinki@reservilaisliitto.fiThe Turku Caravelle- team stopped by at Puusepäntie to collect the signs we had made and installed them to guide visitors to see the magnificent Caravelle III, OH-LEA “Bluebird”, owned by Aviation Museum Society Finland, and outstandingly restored by the Turku Caravelle Team.

Photos: Lassi Karivalo, unless otherwise mentioned

Translation to English: Matti Liuskallio