The Quincy Rotating Q
A new condominium, The Quincy, approached North Standard looking to create a massive sign that matched the radiance of their branding. Deceptively simple, they wanted the sign to be 6’ wide, edged with neon, and the hottest pink we could get our hands on. We were left to figure out the remaining details. Oh, and it had to move too.
Starting Points
The Quincy had already done some significant branding and inspiration before coming to North Standard. They had committed to their bright pink ‘Q’ logo and extensive use of neon throughout the rest of their building and wanted to continue that use here. They provided a rendering of their intent which we had to scale to be achievable to spin. However, everything else was set in stone.
We took this time to also look at existing neon signs to see the construction.
Our first step before getting too far was to test our assembly method. We needed to decide how the overall structure would go together and how the neon would attach. To lower costs we decided to go with Neon LED track which is bendable, but only to a certain radius which also needed to be tested.
We landed on leaving a gap around the edges of the outer shell that the neon could be stuffed into. For the substructure we wanted to use metal bars that would later help in assembly, and also for stiffness during installation.
Models were quickly CADed and cut via CNC plasma cutter and tacked together to test the assembly method.
The mockups showed that any assistance lining up the layers was going to speed up assembly drastically.
Once we confirmed the general construction we quickly outsourced the shell to another company specializing in extremely wide rolled sheet metal and set about focusing on the inner structure.
We took a few learnings from the prototype and integrated them. Adding small reliefs around the tubes to accommodate welds and allow more tolerance from the plasma cutter. We also added mortises into the supporting strips to help us bend those pieces and align things.
After a few more tests we were ready to start cutting.
Production
Assembly moved quickly through the stages, first putting together the ribs, then assembling as a whole. Skinning ended up being quite a production due to a manufacturing issue from the outsourced company, but bending a fresh sheet using the old one as a form quickly sent us through that issue.
Each rib was cut in two pieces and assembled flat. The front and back ribs had stacked pieces to provide an offset for the LED neon channel. The stacked pieces all lined up flush to an edge for ease of assembly.
An upright was created to hold the first rib plumb and then the proceeding faces were stacked on the tubes that lined up through each rib. Spacer blocks cut to the exact distances kept the spacing correct and everything was squared before fully welding the tubes and adding on the support bars that the shell would attach to.
It wasn’t long before we got to assembling the outer shell, most of which required some finagling and a lot of clamps to fit. To keep the outside as seamless as possible and avoid time-consuming sanding, the shell was attached with adhesives only.
Only a few coats of paint later and the Q was ready for install.
Installed
The Q was installed in August 2023 on the corners of 8th and Spring Garden and has been rotating and lighting up The Quincy since