light box sign

[Stephen Ingham]

hi jon, we use 5mm opal acrylic sheets when we do light boxes, i recently replaced a facia that had been smashed with a brick, the one we replaced was no thicker than 3mm, very brittle.

stephen

[Andy Gorman]

It’s also a good idea to use the correct translucent vinyl. Not only does it give good colour illumination, but will behave better when the box is warming up and cooling down a lot. ie The vinyl won’t shrink back as a standard vinyl would.

If the existing sign has vinyl lettering, can you simply replace the vinyl?

[Jon Fields]

The exisitng panel is intact but old and dirty and the vinyl has faded..
a new sign facia would sprouce it up a bit, but if i did clean it up any ideas
what chemical to use to clean it. also…
Any ideas on cost..it’s about 1ft wide and 18ft long (odd size)

thanks

Jon
😉

[Bill Dewison]

I’ve stripped & cleaned acrylic in a light box before. Once I’d carefully scraped off the old vinyl, I used white spirits and lots of elbow grease to get rid of the glue residue, then washed it down with soap and water. I wiped the whole surface with methalated spirits (having the odd swig, for medicinal purposes only 🙄 ) then washed the whole acrylic again with soap and water.

The acrylic looked good as new once I’d finished, but as it was over 4 metres in length and a metre high, it did take quite a while to clean up. Also, both sides of the acrylic need washing down thoroughly, but it is worth it. The labour charges for this type of work unfortunately don’t make it viable in all circumstances, but in my case I hadn’t been in business that long and I was willing to put in a little time as I had more time.

Just as important as cleaning the acrylic is making sure the channels that the acrylic slide into are clean. When you’re fitting the acrylic back in the lightbox, if there is mounds of dirt in there, you’ll quickly end up recleaning the acrylic before you can sign off on the job as I discovered 😕

Cheers, Dewi

[Steve Broughton]

New panels is the way I would go, you’ll most probably lose money by cleaning up the existing one, its a pain in the bum and takes flippin ages, come up with some plausible bull to baffle the customer with or tell them the truth “look mate its gonna cost you more for me to clean this up than do a new panel” :lol1:

[Signs & Wonders]

Jon

Just a thought, but if your customer is cost conscious after you have given the price to replace the panels, tell him he could save some money by cleaning off the panels himself. Obviously give him the description of how difficult and time consuming that is (thanks to Dewi), and if he goes for panel cleaning it is not your problem.

Also, if it looks bad – you can say “I told you to replace the panels” rather than the customer complaining to you if they don’t clean up good.

Cheers

Tony

[Andy Davis]

If you get new panels., make sure you use 050 the cost should be about £45

[Andy Gorman]

Andytez999 – Where you getting your acrylic from? £45?

[Gary Davis]

what does the 050 mean? maybe a very silly Q!!!

[Andy Gorman]

It’s a colour/shade reference. 069 is opaque white, 050 is more transparent for lightbox use.

[Jon Fields]

Thanks for all the tips..
Customer is taking the ownership themselves for the panels and they are
going to clean them up! If they look ok we have agreed to vinyl them..
if not it’s new panels..
(spin)

cheers

Jon