How should I cut metal for yard signs?

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

earlene

Grandmother & Soaper
Supporting Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2016
Messages
9,778
Reaction score
12,054
Location
Western Illinois, USA
My son called to ask me to put up a sign to sell or rent their house in my town (they live in Texas.) We already had the 'For Rent' sign from the last time, still in the garage, but his phone number has changed and it doesn't say 'Or For Sale' on it. So I went to Farm & Fleet and bought a 'For Sale by Owner' yard sign and now need to fit them together cohesively.

I cut off the bottom half of the 'For Rent' sign because it has the wrong number and I only wanted the 'For Rent' part of the sign. Now to stick the 2 together is easy with the metal that comes from the original the sign, as it fits into the little corrugated areas within the sign. EXCEPT, that leaves a 9-inch open space between both signs. 9 inches doesn't sound like much, but it's a huge gap and won't work well at all. So I need to shorten the metal inserts to eliminate the gap.

I figured tin snips or something along those lines, but I don't know what metal cutting tools we have in the garage or basement and rather than searching around in the near dark (Hubby is at work right now so I can't enlist his help atm), I thought I'd ask if the crafty folks here have a suggestion. If I have to go back to F&F to buy another tool, I can do that.
 
An angle grinder is a good quick tool to cut metal and gives a good finish. You need a metal cutting blade though.
Use eye protection and set up in the garden so sparks don't effect anything.
 
Thank you all for your responses and suggestions. It became moot when my son called back and said they only want to rent it for now as they don't really want to be selling two houses at the same time. (The house they live in now is for sale already.) So I just put up the For Rent Sign. I'll return the For Sale sign to F&F for a refund.

Just to clarify, the signs are not metal, they are that corrugated plastic. The metal about which I asked is the sort of H-shaped base that goes into the ground. The metal is either 12 or 14 gauge steel. Looks like the base seen in this picture. The sign itself is different, but the metal 'feet' look almost the same.

957eb8b0-d690-44ac-80cc-daad75ab5eea_1.ee620e697c0c447379219a5160f41c6c.jpeg
 
FYI, the stands are called H Stakes (the company I work for also makes signs).

As for the signs, if you ever need to shorten them, you can use a pair of fairly heavy metal snips (if I'm reading you correctly, it's the H stake you want to shorten, not the signs themselves). They're basically very heavy wire.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top