making an old beer sign a recycled tiki sign....

Back in the 50's and 60's, Hamm's beer made some of the best lookin' beer sign novelties. Just take a quick glance on ebay and you'll see even the broken ones going for big bucks. Every so often i happen across a busted one at a flea market or estate sale, which is really the only place to find them these days. The one pictured below i found for $6.50 at an estate sale last weekend. I decided to rebuild it from scratch and turn it into a cool tiki themed "BAR OPEN" sign. I'm about half way finished with it and as soon as it's finished i'll post pics of what i did to it. For now, these pics are what I started with.......

Tipsy, I remember those. Didn't the water shimmer or something? How did those work? Can't wait to see your plan.

:music: From the land of sky blue waters, comes the beer refreshing :music:

This particular model contains only a small flourescent bulb. It originally did nothing more than illuminate the background photo print and the hamm's logo. Some of these from back in the day were pretty delux- they featured the moving water option, the bouncing colored balls and the most popular (and most expensive to buy these days ) , starry nite which featured a mid century style plastic house structure with moving, twinkling stars.

Have always loved this idea.
But you are right the old signs
even the ones that are messed up
can cost too much.
Got an old Strohs Glass from a sign that
I wanted to tikify.
But hit a snag and put it aside.
Have another rotating light that is waiting
to be worked on.

Great idea Tipsy can't wait to see your work.
Maybe you could start a "from this to that" thread.
Green tiki.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

Okay- about 75% finished..... still a way to go so don't get too critical just yet....

here's some progress pics.....

The original flourescent light fixture was shot..... it's fuse/ ballast blew when i plugged it in. No sense tryin to find a replacement for it so i just pulled it out and used 2 candelabra sockets with 2 orange xmas bulbs instead.

I kept the gold trim look around the yellow acrylic sign area. I wanted to keep the look simple and try to stay true to the look of what a novelty tiki sign might look like if this were made back in the day. still have to add lettering and a few details on the back wall of the bar.

I'm going to float the word "BAR" off the back wall and the word "open" on the yellow acrylic in the gold frame. I didn't want to use the word tiki because i felt it would be redundant. after all, we all know what it is when we look at it - it already says tiki bar without saying tiki bar. besides, once this is hanging behind or near a real home tiki bar, it's gonna make sense as something in/around the bar, announcing that the bar is ready to serve booze.

stay tuned !!

" In a perfect world...Elvis would still be alive ....and all the elvis impersonators would be dead!!"

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2011-06-29 20:27 ]

Looks great so far.

Great transformation, love the lighting.

Terrific. This is fun, Wendy

Love it.

Wow! That's totally cool! Can't wait to see it completed.

How big is it? In some of the pix it looks pretty hefty, and in others, not so large.

Really cool looking so far... I wish I had room for pieces like that.

WOW, that is quite a change. Love what you have done to it.

Great googli moogli, that is awesome!

6 hams up

thanks for the positive encouragement everyone !!

I hope to make a little more progress this weekend. I'm juggling a few different projects right now.

I'd like to get the thatch roof installed and a few other details. I'll have to do the lettering next week.

Can't wait to see the complete transformation! Looks good now!!

This is a really great idea and it's turning out just swell! Any pics to update? Lookin' forward to what's next!!

thanks for the interest !! This project has been on the back burner due to more pressing projects that need to go out the door first. As soon as I buy some free time I'll finish it up. it's almost done,

Very Cool, Wendy

WOW!

Call me impressed!!!! NICE job!

Hey dave where's it at???

sorry skip-

i was busy the past month or 2 doing little things around here such as getting married and honeymooning..... :) Now that I am back I will pick up where I left off. I haven't forgotten about this little sign project. It's on the table and is one of the first things i'm going to get around to doing. - as well as finishing up the swizzle project for vampiressRN.....stay tuned !!

Hey Congrats Dave!!!

Love what you've done with sign, looking forward to seeing the finished product. Congratulations on your recent accomplishment! :)

here's the finished sign... just got around to posting pics. The sign has been SOLD already but I wanted to complete this thread.

That turned out GREAT Swagger! You would never know it was an old beer sign, congrats on the sale.

Sweet

M

[ Edited by poptiki on 2022-10-12 03:11:39 ]

cool- thanks everyone !