A primer and iron flake solu­tion are applied to an alu­minum pan­el, then an acidic solu­tion is sprayed on to begin the ​“rust­ing” chem­i­cal reac­tion. Depend­ing on the desired rust lev­el, the sign could sit for a cou­ple hours or overnight. The longer, the rusti­er. Then the fin­ish is rinsed off and clear coat­ed to ​‘stop’ the con­tin­ued degra­da­tion of the finish. 

Just like nat­u­ral­ly occur­ring rust, there is no spe­cif­ic pat­tern to the rust fin­ish, it’s all nat­ur­al since it is the same rust­ing process…just sped up a lit­tle, then stopped.

Since alu­minum is a more mal­leable met­al, it responds bet­ter to bend­ing and cut­ting. Archi­tec­tur­al sign designs with curves and bends are pos­si­ble with this mate­r­i­al and so is inter­nal illu­mi­na­tion. Whether backed up, flush, or push through, cre­at­ing cnc-cut logos and let­ters are much eas­i­er using alu­minum than using steel. With an alu­minum prod­uct, cnc-rout­ing let­ters on the flatbed is a stan­dard and more cost-effi­cient process since alu­minum is an eas­i­er met­al to fabricate.

This faux rust fin­ish, using alu­minum, doesn’t con­tin­ue to degrade over the years. The fin­ish is clear coat­ed and essen­tial­ly stops the ​“rust­ing” process in its tracks. This is ben­e­fi­cial so you won’t see rusty drips on your let­ters or your base. The clear coat stops the rust­ing process and also allows this sign fin­ish to be more van­dal resis­tant and eas­i­er to clean than tra­di­tion­al paint­ed finishes.