My grandfather used to be the sign maker for our town.
He would literally hand carve each sign out of wood.
It would take him weeks. That’s why, naturally, whenever I drive past any sort of signage, I just assumed that somebody hand made it. It can be the marker for a housing community or a storefront. If it’s wood, I thought somebody made it by hand. I remarked upon this observation once and a friend corrected me. He told me he used to work for a sign making company and that it’s all done by machine now. Specifically he told me they used a gerber Sabre 408 at his company. He told me they can crank out a sign in a few hours. That was pretty shocking to me. I remembered how my grandfather used to use chisels and sandpaper and how he lovingly touched each sign he built. He would drive around town and point out the signs that he crafted. I wonder if wooden signs made by a Gerber Sabre 408 have the same amount of love poured into them that my grandfather poured into his signs. Probably not. but I can’t really say that I’m surprised to find out that machines make almost all wooden signs nowadays. It’s way more cost-effective. Knowing this information, kind of makes me want to open up my grandfather’s sign-making business again. I’ve never really been interested in woodworking but if I could use a machine to make the signs, like the Gerber Sabre 408, I bet I could make it work.