In early January, construction began on the "Hamilton" sign in the Dundas workshop of Hamilton Scenic Specialty Inc. Now, it is just a matter of some final tweaks before the sign goes to its permanent home in front of Hamilton City Hall. On average, a team of seven people worked every day on the sign for three solid months.

The Hamilton sign is similar to the iconic "Toronto" sign in Nathan Phillips Square , albeit with a few differences and improvements.

While the Toronto sign was built out of steel, Mike Kukucska and his team at Hamilton Scenic chose aluminum for the majority of the construction to avoid any issues of rusting. The 2.3-metre-tall letters of the sign will also allow people to stand inside them.

"We built it with the full intention that people stand inside and they become the word and they become the city", said Kukucska. "We want people to go in it." The letters are also hollow which allows city hall to be seen through the sign.

The sign is completely custom-built — from the handmade jigs used to bend curves into the aluminum letters to the homemade LED uplighters (a term Kukucska uses to describe the light at the bottom of each letter that shines up) at the base of each letter to ensure any possible colour combination could be created along with a clean white light

Attention to detail was paramount for Hamilton Scenic. There is a cut out in front of the sign's platform to allow for wheelchair users to be able to get as close as possible to take photographs. Kukucska even used an iPhone to test the distance from the sign one would have to be, to ensure all the letters could be captured in a photo. That facilitated moving the location of the sign further from the street than originally planned so folks wouldn't be tempted to stand in the middle of Main Street to get the shot.

Kukucska's frequent collaborator, Jeff Schwab of Custom LX, handled the electrical work. The 125 metres of LED lights can burn 40,000 hours or four-and-a-half years, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at full power before they need to be replaced. They will last much longer than that since the plan is to have the lights at only 40 per cent of full power to ensure they don't overpower smartphone photos (another nod to the importance of making photographing the sign easy). At that level they only draw around 500 watts of power, which is "less than a hair dryer," says Schwab. That's about $1.20 worth of electricity.

The 18-metre-wide sign is expected to be unveiled at Hamilton City Hall on Friday, April 27, between 7 and 8 p.m. Although Hamilton Scenic has completed ambitious projects for theatres and museums across the globe, of this "labour of love" Kukucska says, "This is the thing I'm most proud of and I cannot wait to have people see this. We're pretty pumped."

sgardner@thespec.com

905-526-3385 | @Scottatthespec