Signcraft was founded back in 1992 by Henry Barker, who with no prior experience, agreed to sign-write two Dodge vans. Soon after this, Barker purchased a Gerber Sprint plotting machine and produced work as a hobby around his job driving HGVs around the world for touring rock bands such as the Rolling Stones and David Bowie.

Following a conversation with a stage carpenter at a Roxette tour in the late 90s, Barker landed a contract to help produce the stage floor for the ‘Mamma Mia’ stage show. To do this, he purchased an AXYZ router to produce the plywood and birch stage flooring and acrylic stones and decorations for on stage.

Fast forward to 2002 and it was during a visit to Sign & Digital that Signcraft and ITC first crossed paths, kicking off a 20-year working relationship.

Barker explains: “At the time, we only had our routing machine a couple of years and we were using tools from another supplier. The range of tools was quite limited and made some jobs quite challenging.

“We didn’t know how limited the tools were until we met Sally from ITC. Sally introduced us to the ITC range and this encompassed everything from square and ball nose tools to tapered tools, long series tools, and much more.”

Over the years that followed, Signcraft purchased a number of tools from ITC to use on its shop floor and Barker says it wasn’t just the diversity of range that kept the company going back but the “outstanding quality”.

“The tools were almost impossible to break and the service and technical support from Sally has been outstanding,” Barker says, adding: “If we have a particular challenge or we need a special tool, the technical support from Sally and the ITC team has been exemplary.”

Henry Barker, Signcraft founded with the 3.4m-high hands the company produced for the Swedish series of ‘The Voice’

To date, Signcraft has produced a number of notable products with support from ITC including 3.4m-high stage prop ‘hands’ for the Swedish version of ‘The Voice’ TV show. To produce these, Signcraft applied the 20mm diameter ball nose tools from ITC to cut over 20 cubic metres of Styrofoam.

Barker says: “We use a lot of the ITC LG Series of single flute tools for machining all our plastic materials and the STA Series for machining aluminium or similar materials. Upon occasions, we also use special ITC tools for machining stainless or other more challenging materials.”

Another notable job produced by Signcraft was the manufacture of Selectric Typeballs from 1970s typewriters. The work came about after the Swedish government committed a percentage of its infrastructure and new buildings budget to create art.

Signcraft was commissioned to create the Typeballs which measured in at 2.5m high and were constructed from 22 cast aluminium sections measuring 1m x 750mm which were welded together.

Once the aluminium sheets had been cast in a foundry and Signcraft had produced the mould tools using high density polyurethane sheets, the 3D forms were rough machined on a Kimla CNC routing machine with a 20mm diameter ball nosed LG Series tool from ITC. The final touches were made using a 6mm diameter ball nosed LG Series tool.

Barker adds: “What we have found with ITC is the quality of the cutting tools is exemplary. The tool life, quality and performance is outstanding. It is also the technical expertise that ensures we are optimising our machining parameters and maximising the potential of the cutting tools.”

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