Sign Challenges Overcome With Waterjet Cut Design

Retailers recognize the importance of creative signage in grabbing the attention and mindshare of the often-overwhelmed consumer. Signage that commands attention can be key in attracting a new business’ first customers.

Lightning Burger, a new quick-service hamburger restaurant located in the food court at Six Flags Mall in Arlington, Texas, needed help jazzing up its signage to help it stand out from the crowd of other restaurants located within the food court. Heather Moreno, president of Lightning Burger, who had been busy getting things in line to open the restaurant and mentioned to one of her vendors that they needed help with their corporate signage. Her vendor, Barbara Einsohn, mentioned that her husband’s business Waterjet Works specialized in working with the hospitality industry and suggested Moreno contact them for help with their corporate image. Waterjet Works, based in Dallas, Texas, is a custom waterjet design and fabrication company that uses computer-driven waterjet cutting machinery to create signage for the hospitality industry among the many of their markets. Moreno then decided to talk to owner Philip Einsohn about some design options.

“Philip and I talked about ideas of things we could do as far as signage to jazz up the outside,” recalls Moreno. “When he suggested a ceramic tile sign with our logo, we thought that was a great idea since another goal was to use a material that could be easily maintained and cleaned.”

“The hospitality industry requires specific industry knowledge of design and the idiosyncrasies retailers face, of which our company has considerable experience,” said Einsohn. “Our goal for the Lightning Burger sign was to create a bold and dramatic look that is easily maintained and inexpensive to produce.”

After evaluating several design options, Waterjet Works chose to use brightly colored ceramic tile to create Lightning Burger’s logo. As part of the design, they would use several hundred 4 ¼” ceramic tiles with thicknesses ranging from 3/16” to ¼”that would be assembled into Lightning Burger’s logo. While ceramic tile turned out to be the best solution to meet the client’s needs, dealing with ceramic tile has its own set of challenges as each piece, by nature, is sized differently and would require care in cutting.

“The tile all comes from the same manufacturer, but there are different sized pieces which all require special treatment,” said Einsohn. “Since you’re dealing with pieces of tile in which size differences can vary by as much as 0.001”, any deviations can throw off the design.”

In order to cut the tile pieces in a way that would help compensate for the variations in size, Waterjet Works needed a cutting process that would keep the tight tolerances required when it came time to assemble the final product.

A few years earlier, Waterjet Works had implemented two 6x10 A-series ultrahigh-pressure abrasive waterjet cutting machines from Flow International Corporation. Abrasive waterjets can cut virtually any material, including marble, granite, tile, travertine, metal and glass up to eight inches thick. To achieve the energy required for cutting materials, water is pressurized and forced through an orifice ranging from 0.004” – 0.022” in diameter. Hydraulically-driven intensifier pumps pressurize water up to 60,000 psi. Water is then carried to either an abrasive or straight waterjet cutting nozzle, which can be stationary or integrated into mobile equipment for cutting shapes or other intricate designs. PC-based software translates drawings to the system for the cutting head to follow a specific path. Other benefits of abrasive waterjet include omnidirectional shape cutting capabilities, increased productivity, minimal lateral or vertical force, no microstresses or cracks, and the ability to cut with precision accuracy of +/- 0.005 inch. The A-series machine has the ability to cut flat stock materials with a high level of accuracy, at +/- 0.003 inches, which was key in being able to cut the tile pieces at the tolerances needed for the signage project.

The waterjet machine was key in helping Waterjet Works maintain a consistent cut for each of the tiles used in Lightning Burger’s ceramic tile logo. Also key to the success of the project was the installation of the tiles. With the ability of the waterjet to cut at exact dimensions, Waterjet Works was able to create a map with corresponding numbered tile pieces to give installers an easy blueprint from which to work. Overall, the project was a success – completed in just one week from design to final cutting. Lightning Burger was pleased with the finished signage, which provided a jazzy way to help differentiate their restaurant from the competition.

“I really like our signage and am overall very happy with the way it turned out,” said Moreno. “The use of the ceramic tile gave us a nice bold look that is also easy to keep clean.”

Einsohn, who uses waterjets for most projects, is convinced that waterjet cutting is the only way to go in solving the most complex design challenges.

“With the projects we work on, waterjet cutting is key in not only helping us deliver finished product faster, but also in creating higher quality cuts,” said Einsohn.

Story used with permission from www.flowcorp.com