Acrylic Letters

[Andy Gorman]

Erm, I don’t fancy your chances much. You could remove them by sliding an old carving knife under the letter and tapping with a hammer to slice under the letter, but the panel underneath is going to be in a right state. If any kind of decent acrylic adhesive has been used it is possible bits of the panel will come away with the letters. You’ll certainly never get the panel looking smooth again and the amount of time spent would probably be better invested in buying a new panel.

[-steve]

What about using the back of the panel?
Flip it over and maybe flood coat it with vinyl to give you a nice shiny new surface to work with.

steve

[Andy Gorman]

That might work. Only thing is, if the panel is in more than one piece there will likely be an overlapping joining strip glued to the back. But you’ll have more chance of removing this than a load of letters. Also, if the panel has a hanging bar at the top it should be fairly easy to remove using the method I described above and then just glue a new one on the front.

[Robert Lambie]

as G has said… your fighting a losing battle if they are fitted correct.
on the other hand.. they may only be fixed with d/sided tape or foam stick tap. i have seen this many times. eather way.. take it down and have a go.. not on site.
the only alternative to buying a panel is as steve says. flip it and hope that it the first time flipped. :lol1:
i have done this in the past and if you are lucky you get a brand new shine to the rear. or,,,, flood coat with vinyl and apply text like steve says..
again, this will invlove removing the panel taking back, cleaning and coating in vinyl. then going back & fitting… with all considered he maybe better with some rynabond or the like. 😕

[Peter Normington]

in my experience the labour involved trying to save the client money never works even flood coating the treverse of the perspex outways the cost of replacement.

[Andy Gorman]

I tend to agree with Peter. It’s all very well saving the customer some money on material costs but your labour is going to be quite substantial by the time you get the panel usable. Add to that the fact that you will have to take the panel down just to see whether it is reusable. Quote a higher price for a refurb than a new panel because the likelyhood is that a new panel would be quicker and cheaper to supply. That’s what I would do. Sometimes a job just aint worth getting involved with.

[Rodney Gold]

Heh , I agree with walking away from a job like that unless you can do it from scratch. Too many unforseens there.
We once had a client bring us a piece of a brass urinal and asked us to engrave a plaque with his house name etc on it.
As a policy , we NEVER work on a clients material , we have no idea of what it is exactly and how it will machine or respond to our processes and invariably its damaged or scatched and we are expected to fix this or are accused of causuing the scratch etc. The sign is the first thing you see and a cheap and nasty one is bad news , like going to a Dr and seeing his name plate in laminated deskjet paper – a real confidence inspiring sign 😉

[John Harding]

Thanks everyone, I will have a look to see if I get lucky but I have already told the customer a refurb might not be practical.

appreciate all the advice I will post a reply of the outcome

John

[John Harding]

Just as you all suspected the letters were bonded with a quality adhesive akin to sh*! to a blanket, the reverse was not worth looking at by the time the overlap to the rear of the rebate and the hanging strip were removed so the customer had to bite the bullet and pay for a new panel.

thanks again everyone who took time to comment.

John