How can I keep this sign from being stolen?
This is the sign in front of our Zen temple. I suspect that the thieves are students from the nearby university who think it’s “awesome” to have a sign that says “Zen Center” hanging in their frat house. This is not the first time, but I’d like to make it the last.
I thought I had made it too hard for a drunk undergrad to want to mess with removing it. The sign is ½” thick Corian. I had used the strongest industrial polyurethane adhesive I could find to glue two brackets (made from massive aluminum angle) to the back of the sign. Then I used 8 huge lag screws to attach the brackets to the 4X4 wood posts. The posts are embedded in 300 lbs of concrete.
The weak point, apparently, was the adhesive. They must have taken a crowbar to it.
It will cost $600 to replace the sign, and unless I can come up with a better deterrent, I fully expect it to disappear too.
Can you creative people help me outsmart these punks?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
29 Answers
drive the screws directly through the sign itself.
Are psy ops out of the question?
If not, maybe you could make some addition that would hurt their likely very fragile sense of masculinity. Put a lovely rainbow on the sign.
@ragingloli I considered that, but the sign isn’t very big (about 1 meter long X 30 cm high) so peppering the front of it with big screw heads would look pretty crappy.
@bookish1 Psy ops are most definitely on the table.
how about something like this, or a solid metal frame around the sign, and you attach the frame to the post.
Maybe the little bastards are Britney fans & have taken her lyrics literally…
“Give me a sign…hit me baby one more time!”
Gotta step away for awhile…I’ll check back soon.
Or make the sign itself out of metal and weld it to the metal piece you attach to the post.
I’m trying to think of a way that you could, say, project the sign “Zen Center” onto a signboard, the side of a wall or even a walkway, so that the light (or shadow) itself delivered the message, and the template for the projection could be hidden, elevated, behind a locked fence or gate, etc. in a way that would be much more difficult to access.
No one could steal the light, or the shadow.
Either that, or make the sign so inexpensively and easily attached that it can be taken regularly and cause no more inconvenience than getting the mail every day. (Well, less aggravation than that would be nice.) But don’t make it an “attractive” sign.
Those are kind of zen-like alternatives, anyway, aren’t they?
Is there a lawn around the building? Fertilize the sign into the grass in huge letters.
Have a sandbox in front of the building (it doesn’t have to be a large one) and spell out Zen Center in the sand as often as that needs to be done.
Post so many small “Zen Center” signs that they can’t all be stolen by a single individual.
Put signs on all of the surrounding buildings that say “Not the Zen Center”. Don’t put a sign of any kind on your building.
Write “Zen Center” in colored chalk on the sidewalk in front of the building. Or mount a small chalkboard to the door and write it there.
You could always put the sign behind an exterior window of the building, but the more I think of this now, the more that seems like cheating somehow.
Extremely bright motion activated lights surrounding the sign….?
Add in small letters at the bottom of the sign.
$500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone stealing this sign.
Also adding a security camera will not prevent the crime, but you will have videos to give the cops and to post on FB or Youtube.
I love @CWOTUS‘s suggestions, especially “Not the Zen Center.” They seem to me to be very much in the spirit of the thing.
If I ask myself what Suzuki-roshi would say, though, I wonder if he would offer something about detachment or about not trying to control it.
Maybe he would suggest enlisting the aid of the local fraternities to guard the sign. Or maybe he would propose making the sign of no value, perhaps by installing a marquee-style board, or printing the sign on paper and replacing it as often as need be, or omitting the attractive part (presumably the word Zen) and either using a symbol or just posting the initials of the center (”— — ZC”).
Or, very pragmatically, how about a sandwich-board sign that can be put out when the center is open and taken in when it’s closed, or when visitors are not expected? If first-time visitors are the only ones who need to see a sign, and then only when the center is open to the public, a portable sign might do the trick.
Write the sign in Chinese characters.
Incorporate a radio tracking device in the sign. Or just attach a note saying there is one.
So glad I put this in Social! You guys are brilliant!
@CWOTUS We actually did try the “sign in the front window” approach after the last theft (in fact, it’s still there), but it’s virtually invisible from the street because of the reflections of the glass. That’s what prompted us to risk this sign out by the sidewalk.
Mount the sign on your roof?
Any update here, @thorninmud? What have you decided to do? Not that I’m attached to the outcome . . .
@Jeruba :) Yep, I’m just now finalizing the design.
I’m having the sign maker cut a second piece of Corian to match the shape of the sign. I’ll use several long countersunk flathead screws to attach this blank shape to the posts from the front side. The piece with the graphics on it will be attached to the blank piece (so covering the screws holding the blank to the post), and the two pieces will be held together by a mess of tamper-proof screws passing through the blank piece from behind and threading into blind holes tapped into the back of the sign. And I’ll probably slather some adhesive between the two pieces just out of pure spite.
Answer this question 
Composing members:
0
