Barlo Signs Hilltop Steak HouseFrank Giuffrida’s Hilltop Steak House was once one of the top eating attractions in Saugus, Massachusetts. The establishment added to its recognition thanks to its landmark, sixty-seven-foot-tall, on-premise sign shaped like an illuminated cactus.
弗兰克·吉弗里达（frank Giuffrida）的山顶牛排屋曾经是马萨诸塞州索格斯的顶级美食景点之一。该建筑因其标志性的67英尺高的内部标识而增加了其认知度，其形状像一棵被照亮的仙人掌。
The two top sign cabinets of this legendary sign resembled bowties (a 36-by-10-foot featuring “Hilltop” letters and a 56-by-14-foot with “Steak House” letters) while the 28-by-5-foot bottom panel featured the name “Frank Giuffrida’s.” The base resembled a cactus and its branches sprung upwards to hold the cabinets and panels in place.
这一传奇标识的两个顶部标识类似于领结(一个36乘10英尺长、印有“山顶”字样的标识和一个56乘14英尺长、印有“牛排屋”字样的标识)，而底部28乘5英尺宽的展板上写着“弗兰克·吉弗里达”的字样。底座像一个仙人掌，它的枝干向上伸展，把橱柜和嵌板固定在合适的位置。
Sporting over 2,500 feet of green neon tubing and 210 fluorescent lamps of various sizes, this attention-grabbing spectacular stood out along the landscape of Route 1 and wowed everyone in the area for many years.
这个引人注目的壮观景观沿着1号公路的景观展开，并在该地区的每个人都惊叹多年，体育超过2,500英尺的绿色霓虹灯管和210个不同大小的荧光灯。
But, as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.
但是，俗话说，所有好事都必须走到尽头。
The Frank Giuffrida’s Hilltop Steak House restaurant shut down in 2013, yet the reality was that its once-iconic sign had already been a victim of disrepair for years. The oversized cactus found itself on the endangered list of extinct historic signage and threatened to take a spot on Memory Lane.
Frank Giuffrida的Hilltop Steak House餐厅于2013年关闭，但现实情况是，其曾经标志性的标志多年来一直是失修的受害者。超大的仙人掌发现自己已经濒临灭绝的历史标志名单，并威胁要在Memory Lane上占据一席之地。
Thanks to the recent AvalonBay residential and Crosspoint retail developments, which are taking the dilapidated property and turning it into a mixture of apartments, restaurants, and shops, the giant illuminated cactus has risen again like a prickly phoenix from the past—only now entirely with LEDs.
由于最近的AvalonBay住宅和Crosspoint零售开发项目正在将破旧的房产变成公寓，餐厅和商店的混合物，巨大的照明仙人掌再次像过去的凤凰一样再次上升 - 现在完全与LED指示灯。
The restored sign is back in action in the same spot, now standing next to the new 110 Grill steakhouse. The cactus still says “Hilltop,” but it also advertises the new Avalon/Crosspoint development.
恢复后的标识在同一地点恢复运行，现在站在新的110烧烤牛排馆旁边。仙人掌仍然写着“山顶”，但它也宣传了新的阿瓦隆开发项目。
In the end, it took a fifty-year-old sign company to bring this fifty-year-old landmark back to illuminated glory.
最后，一家有五十年历史的公司让这个五十年历史的标志性建筑才重新焕发光彩。
The Seeds for This Project
项目起源
Back in October of 2017, AvalonBay and Crosspoint Associates reached out to Barlo Signs, a full-service sign company in Hudson, New Hampshire that has been in business since 1968, asking about the opportunity to restore this sign. (Note: Barlo Signs was recently purchased by Raymond Brayton, Patrick Assioun, and Philippe Dame in July 2018, and Brayton is currently their new president.)
早在2017年10月，阿瓦隆·贝（AvalonBay）和过境点联合公司（Crosspoint Associates）就联系了巴洛标识公司（Barlo Signs），这是一家位于新罕布什尔州哈得孙河（ Hudson，New Hampshire）的全方位服务标识公司，自1968年开始营业，就有人询问是否有机会恢复这一标识。巴洛标识公司最近由雷蒙德·布莱顿（Raymond Brayton），帕特里克·阿西翁（Patrick Assioun）和菲利普·达姆（Philippe Dame）于2018年7月购买，而布莱顿目前是他们的新总裁。
Long-time Barlo Signs Sales Representative Terry Wilkins had cultivated a long-standing relationship with Avalon and Crosspoint Associates, which opened the door for this opportunity. They were already on their radar because three years earlier, the company built a large display for one of their residential properties.
长期与巴洛标识公司签约销售代表特里威尔金斯与阿瓦隆和过境点联合公司建立了长期合作关系，这为这个机会打开了大门。三年前，他们已经开始关注他们，他们为其中一个住宅物业建造了一个大型显示器。
Wilkins, Brayton, and Director of Project Management Colby Wolff met up with AvalonBay to discuss this project, and they were instantly smitten with the possibilities. “We were very excited to be given the opportunity to bring life back to the iconic New England landmark, as many of us have great memories of the old restaurant,” says Brayton.
威尔金斯，布莱顿和项目管理总监科尔比·沃尔夫（Colby Wolff）会见了阿瓦隆·贝讨论这个项目，他们立刻被各种计划所打动。布莱顿说：“我们很高兴能有机会将生活带回标志性的新英格兰地标，因为我们很多人对旧餐厅都有美好的回忆。”
The entire cactus display measures sixty-seven feet in height and forty-eight feet at its widest width (the second bowtie).
整个仙人掌高度为67英尺，宽度为48英尺（第二个领结）。
Removal on the Hilltop Steak House Sign begins
在山顶牛排屋标识上开始拆除
The company has done a lot of remodels on typical signs in the U.S., but this was the first time they’d ever gotten involved with a grand-scale sign that’s basically illumination.
该公司已经在美国的典型标识上进行了大量的改造，但这是他们第一次参与一个基本上是大规模照明的标识。
Brayton says his company approached this project as a straight-up restoration. Their goal was not to have to replace anything if they could get away with it.
布莱顿说他的公司将这个项目作为一个直接修复来实现。他们的目标不是要取代任何东西。
Barlo Signs worked closely with Ed Kenny III, senior sales specialist at New England Sign Supply, owned by Grimco, to procure materials throughout the entire project.
巴洛标识公司与Grimco拥有的新英格兰标识供应商（New England Sign Supply）的高级销售专家埃德·肯尼（Ed Kenny）密切合作，整个项目中从他那里采购材料。
Fortunately the city of Saugus was supportive to everyone during the entire project. They were very eager to see this landmark sign restored and remain on the property. “They told us to just stay in the box, and we would be fine,” says Brayton.
幸运的是，索格斯市在整个项目期间对每个人都很有帮助。他们非常渴望看到这个标志性的标识恢复并留在酒店。布莱顿说：“他们告诉我们要保存下来这个大标识，我们会好好做的。”
A Little History About a Big Sign
关于这个大标识的小历史
The former Hilltop Steak House cactus sign was erected back in 1967. The sign was the creation of Mack Sign, Inc., in Everett, Massachusetts.
前山顶牛排馆的仙人掌标识于1967年建成。标识是马萨诸塞州埃弗雷特的麦克标识公司（Mack Sign，Inc）创建的。
According to published reports, Mack Sign formed 115 sections of the sign in a variety of shapes and sizes to arrive at the cactus shape, ranging from elbow pieces to the straight piece on top. In order to make the molds, they had to “carefully match the grooves on each of these pieces to keep the diameter accurate to within an usually close tolerance.”
根据已发表的报告，麦克标识公司逐渐建成了各种形状和大小的标识零件，共115个部分，这些零件可以组成仙人掌的形状，从肘部到顶部的各种零件。为了制造模具，他们必须仔细地匹配每个部件上的凹槽，以保持直径精确到通常接近的公差范围内。
Brayton was amazed at the engineering feats the shop performed back in the day. “There were so many brilliant things that we’d be scratching our heads today trying to come up with,” he says.
布莱顿对这家公司当天的工程专长感到惊讶。他说：“今天有很多复杂的东西让我们摸不着头脑。”
For example, he points toward the small amount of sizes fabricated for the panels. “They didn’t have to have a hundred different molds,” he says. “They just created a dozen or so and laid them out. Basically they would just hand-trim the lengths of some of the panels and massage them to come up against the vertical part of the cactus.”
例如，他指出为面板制造的小尺寸。布莱顿说：“他们没有必要拥有一百种不同的模具，他们刚刚制造了十几个并将它们放好了。基本上他们只是手工修剪一些面板的长度并修整它们以适应仙人掌的垂直部分。”
Barlo Signs ended up using many modern-day manufacturing techniques to restore this sign, with a little bit of history thrown in.
巴洛标识公司最终使用了许多现代制造技术来恢复这个标识，并带来了一点点历史。
Restoring a Prickly Bloom
恢复多刺的绽放
The body of the cactus is unique. “We had to ask ourselves how would we be able to recreate one or several of these panels, if need be? How would we ever be able to match the same green color?” says Brayton.
布莱顿说：“仙人掌的身体是独一无二的。我们不得不问自己，如果需要，我们如何能够重建这些面板中的一个或几个？我们怎么能够匹配相同的绿色？”
Barlo Signs located the original plaster molds, which were housed in nearby Lynn, Massachusetts. “Amazingly we were able to clean and touch up the existing nineteen cactus panels with no need to recreate any pieces!” says Brayton.
巴洛标识公司在马萨诸塞州林恩附近找到了的原始石膏模具。布莱恩说：“令人惊讶的是，我们能够清理和修饰现有的19个仙人掌板，无需重新制作任何小零件！这些模具起了大作用！”
The original cactus was painted light green, then shaded to a dark green and highlighted with yellows and tans. “Because of the fading of the backspray painting over all these years, there was inconsistency in the film,” says Brayton, noting they didn’t want to repaint anything but just restore it.
原始的仙人掌被涂上了浅绿色，然后涂成深绿色，并以黄色和棕色突出显示。布莱顿说：“由于这些年来背景的褪色，在外表上出现了不一致，并指出他们不想重新粉饰任何东西，只是恢复它。”
While a lot of rust was visible on many of the internal parts of the cactus, as well as on the backers of the two sign cabinets, Barlo Signs determined this was not structural. Fortunately this meant these repairs would be mostly cosmetic.
虽然在仙人掌的许多内部零件以及两个标识灯箱的背衬上都可以看到很多锈迹，但巴洛标识公司确定这不是主结构性的。幸运的是，这意味着这些维修工作主要是稍作修饰。
The backers on the top two sign cabinets are solid steel coated in porcelain. “Though porcelain was a popular material used in signage back in the 1960s, it’s not a material that’s often utilized in the industry now,” says Brayton. “We decided to first try cleaning the surface using five or six different agents unsuccessfully.”
顶部两个标识灯箱的背衬是用瓷器涂的实心钢。“虽然瓷器是20世纪60年代用于标识的一种流行材料，但它现在并不是业内经常使用的材料，”布莱顿说， “我们决定首先尝试使用五六种不同的试剂来清洁表面。”
The sign company realized they had to find a way to recolor a large, unfamiliar surface. Some initial ideas included electrostatic painting (typically seen in restoration of porcelain bathtubs), wrapping the sign with vinyl, or fabricating an aluminum overlay.
标识公司意识到他们必须找到一种方法来重新着色一个大标识的表面。一些最初的想法包括静电涂装（通常见于瓷浴缸的修复），用乙烯基包裹标识，或制作铝覆盖层。
“In the end, our in-house painter was able to find an acrylic-based primer specifically designed to bond to porcelain,” says Brayton. “This allowed us to paint the surface using acrylic latex-based paint.”
布莱顿说：“最后，我们的内部工人能够找到专门设计用于粘合瓷器的丙烯酸基底漆，这使我们能够使用丙烯酸乳胶漆涂漆表面。”
An Illuminating Experience
一种照明体验
Thanks to the number of components used, the glow of the original cactus sign generated a massive amount of power, so all parties agreed from the outset to use energy-efficient LEDs instead.
由于所使用的元件数量众多，原始仙人掌标识的发光产生了大量功率，因此所有各方都从一开始就同意使用节能LED。
The first thing Barlo Signs did was strip down the entire display (which had, by that point, deteriorated pretty badly anyways), leaving only the acrylic panels in place. They removed all the neon and fluorescent tubes from it for recycling.
巴洛标识公司所做的第一件事就是拆掉整个显示器（到那时为止，它已经严重损坏掉了），只留下了丙烯酸板。他们从中取出所有霓虹灯和荧光灯管进行回收。
Barlo Signs then used a bucket truck to take down all seventeen, five-foot-tall “Hilltop” and “Steak House” letters and used their cans as a template to create a pattern for a new set of “Hilltop” letters. “We were able to reproduce the original tube look using reverse-cut vinyl on the new letter faces and backlit LED,” says Brayton.
然后巴洛标识公司用一辆斗式卡车取下所有17英尺，5英尺高的“山顶”和“牛排屋”字母，并用他们准备的材料作为模板，为一组新的“山顶”字母创建一个图案。布莱顿说：“我们能够在新的字母面板和背光LED上使用反向切割乙烯基重现原始的管状外观。”
They opted to leave the open pan bowties and red porcelain alone. “We just cleaned them up and painted them,” says Brayton.
他们选择单独留下那些红色瓷器。布莱顿说： “我们只是把它们清理干净并重新涂漆。”
Barlo Signs used 4,100 total feet of LED modules. This change in lighting technology takes the sign from 280 amps, drawing 30,800 watts of power, to only 112.5 amps, drawing 12,375 watts, a reduction of nearly two-thirds.
巴洛标识公司使用了4,100英尺的LED模块。照明技术的这种变化取代了280安培的功率，功率为30,800瓦，仅为112.5安培，功率为12,375瓦，减少了近三分之二。
To give the cactus its subtle greenish-white hue, Barlo Signs ended up combining white and green LEDs, which they adhered to acrylic, cylinder sleeves in order to bring the illumination just behind the surface of the cactus panels. This color combination was actually a happy little experimental case of trial-and-error.
为了给仙人掌带来微妙的绿白色调，巴洛标识公司最终结合了白色和绿色LED，它们粘附在丙烯酸圆柱套上，以便将照明带到仙人掌面板的表面后面。这种颜色组合实际上是一个快速的小试验案例。
A combination of white and green LEDs were used.
使用白色和绿色LED的组合
There really wasn’t much science involved in the LED layout and design. Barlo Signs just took what they had and worked from there. “I took one panel section and created a backdrop that I could string the LEDs to and just do an array of six inches on center,” says Brayton.
LED布局和设计确实没有多少科学说法。巴洛标识公司刚从那里拿走了他们所拥有的东西。布莱顿说：“我采用了一个面板部分并创建了一个背景，我可以将LED串起来，只需在中心做六英寸的阵列，”
Brayton started out with just white LEDs then just green LEDs. Underwhelmed with what he was seeing, he tested green and white LEDs together and immediately discovered this combo brought life to the panels.
Brayton刚开始只使用白色LED，然后只是绿色LED。他看到的不知所措，他一起测试了绿色和白色LED，并立即发现这个组合为标识面板带来了生机。
“There’s a beautiful, wonderful look with the white and the green intermixing with each other. So one pixel is white, the next pixel would dance off to the right about four inches and be green,” says Brayton. “That gave us a jeweled look. In some of the cases where the forming had a little bit of a clear, you can see a white light in a spot and then your eye would see a green over there.”
布莱顿说：“白色和绿色相互混合能产生特别美妙的外观。因此，一个像素是白色的，下一个像素将向右跳四英寸并且是绿色的，这给了我们一个类似宝石的样子。你要是占到合适的位置，你会观察到那些白光，然后你的眼睛也会看到那里的绿色。”
Brayton left everything alone. When the client showed up an hour later, he asked them what they thought. “They were instantly impressed!” says Brayton. “It was exactly what they wanted!”
布莱顿什么都没说。当客户出现一小时后，他问他们的想法。客户说道：“他们立刻给人留下了深刻的印象！”布瑞顿说：“这正是他们想要的！”
Barlo Signs built interior pans and covered them. “We basically had to make them so that they could not only have all the LEDs strung around them, but they would have to be able to fit and slide up inside these radius sections without completely disassembling the cactus,” says Brayton. “We were concerned that we didn’t want to pull apart too much of the steel.”
巴洛标识公司建造内部结构并修整它们。布莱顿说：“我们基本上不得不重新改造它们，以便它们不仅可以将所有LED串在它们周围，而且能够在这些半径部分内安装和滑动，而不必完全拆卸仙人掌，我们担心我们不想拆开过多的钢材。”
The company worked on and installed all of the pieces for this sign starting from the top and moving downwards.
巴洛标识公司从顶部开始并向下移动修整，为此标识工作并安装了所有部件。
Adding new tenant cabinets to the sign.
在标志上添加新的租户柜
Barlo Signs used Lexan for the two sets of four acrylic-face tenant cabinets on the previous “Steak House” bowtie cabinet, and they built two new SignComp single-face extruded cabinets with tinted 3M flex faces for the Avalon cabinet on the bottom.
巴洛标识公司在之前的“牛排屋”标识灯箱中使用Lexan作为两套四个丙烯酸面板标识灯箱，他们在底部为阿瓦隆标识灯箱建造了两个新的标识单面挤压机柜，表面使用的是3M柔性面。
The sign was originally built with corrugated metal wrapped around the main steel pipe. “They put their fluorescent sockets in the valleys of the corrugation and ran the lamps,” explains Brayton. “When I saw that, I thought it was a brilliant idea. I had never thought about that.”
该标识最初是用包裹在主钢管周围的波纹金属制成的。布莱顿解释道：“他们将荧光灯插座放在波纹的山谷中，然后运行标识，当我看到它时，我认为这是一个绝妙的主意，我从没想过这个。“
Barlo Signs wrapped stainless steel on all the cabinet returns to create a single double-face appeal to the signs.
巴洛标识公司在所有灯箱上包裹不锈钢，为标识创造了双面吸引力。
“In some areas, where it was just a lot of missing pieces over the years with all the service work that was done to the sign, we worked with some anodized aluminum to gave it a similar appeal of stainless,” says Brayton. “There was an area around the ends of those bowties that was very jagged cut, and every bit of that was hand-done stainless steel trim capping.”
布莱顿说：“在某些地区，这些年来有很多缺件，我们对标识进行了所有的服务工作，我们使用了一些阳极氧化铝，使其具有类似的不锈钢吸引力，这些领结灯箱的两端有一个非常锯齿状的区域，而且每一个都是手工制作的不锈钢压口装饰。”
All the power supplies are nested in the lowest “Avalon” display. “We had the ten circuits that dropped down to the base of the cactus from there,” says Brayton.
所有电源都嵌套在最低的“阿瓦隆”显示屏中。布莱顿说：“我们有十条回路从那里落到仙人掌底部。”
Making Its Point
提出观点
The illuminated cactus returned to life at a public press-attended ribbon-cutting ceremony on December 21.
十二月二十一日，“仙人掌标识重现生机”的新闻出现在很多电视频道里，很多新闻也播出了该标识的剪彩仪式。
“It truly is one of the biggest and brightest signs on all of Route 1,” says New England Sign Supply’s Ed Kenny III.Barlo Signs Hilltop Steak House
新英格兰标识供应商的埃德·肯尼说道这个伟大的仙人掌标识：“这真的是1号公路上最大和最亮的标识之一。”
Brayton feels the most pride that everyone at his company rallied together to complete this unique and fun project. “There was a lot of off-the-clock time and T-L-C put into this thing by many of us because we just wanted to be over the top,” he says. “To save all that porcelain and rework all the acrylics, you couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.”
布莱顿感到最自豪的是，他的公司里的每个人都团结起来完成了这个独特而有趣的项目。他说：“我们很多人都非常关心和投入到这个标识的制造中，我为此感到十分幸运，因为我们只是想做得更好。为了保存所有的瓷器，重新加工所有的丙烯酸树脂，你不能找到比这更好的结果了!”
