Re: Labels

<<<,%o Ian E. Effort

    I was interested to hear how aluminiun label stakes with stickon plastic
labels are being made now. many years ago I made hundreds of name stakes
from stips of aluminium with the names stamped in by letter and number hand
dies. Then smoothed by a few ahmmer blows on a steel plate to cut back the
ridges thrown up by the die  but still leaving the gut in the metal. Next
the letters were rubbed over with the best quality black paint I could buy
(car paint) and immediately rubbed off by a rag. This left the letters full
of paint and very easy to read. The The final operation was to bend the name
portion of the stake over at a 90 degree angual so when the stake was pushed
in the ground it could be easily read from a standing position. I should add
I also cut points on the stakes with a hand shhear to make them easy to push
into the ground. I still have some I made over 30 years ago still in use.
This old they really should be shined up with emery cloth and repainted as
not very much of the paint was still there - but the name could be plainly
seen closeup. A friend of mine had accesss to scrap stainless steel and made
lovely stakes from this metal that really stood out among the foliage. I
expect it was hard on his dies though. 

   Writing with acid on zinc also made a cheap but legiable stake that had a
very long lifetime and are sold commercialy stuck on a wire. My wife liked
these as she could make them herself and not wait forever for me to make the
aluminium ones. It does take time and requires homemade jigs to hold the
strips and space the letters -  they were 1/4" size but there are larger and
smaller sizes. When I was planting iris I made temperory ones out of thin
wood stakes about a foot long painted aluminium and merely wrote  the names
on them with a heavy felt tip pen. Good for a few months but like to get
them replaced before freezeup. Used ones I merely repainted the named part
and it was ready to be reused. Very quick and easy - but temporary

Gruce Richardson (near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)  
Bruce Richardson (near Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
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