Lightbox Acrylic Advice

[Marcella Ross]

What colour of text is going on the red background Tim? And is it vinyl text?
If it’s vinyl text go with an opal background, red translucent vinyl with the text areas cut out and translucent vinyl in whatever colours for your text.

But someone else will probably have a better answer

😀

[Gert du Preez]

The Red Acrylic/Perspex I get from my supplier is completely opaque, i.e. no light gets through. You can use regular vinyl on Opal 050 Perspex, but it is a bit glossy. The tranlucent vinyls are matt, and looks tons better.

[Tim Painter]

Hi Marcella

Text is Yellow & White cut vinyl.

[Marcella Ross]

oh the chinese one?

Go for opal 050, red translucent with all text cut out, that leaves the white areas and then infill the yellow areas with yellow translucent. 😀
that’s what I’d do.

[Martin Pearson]

Tim, some coloured acrylics block out a lot of light and some let quite a lot through but regardless of how much light gets through you need to use an opal acrylic. If you use a red acrylic sheet then the yellow won’t be yellow and the white won’t be white because of the red acrylic colour if you see what I mean.

[Mike Grant]

You will only be able to use red acrylic if you jigsaw the lettering out and use coloured acrylic behind, but obviously your question tells me you don’t have that skill so go down the opal and translucent vinyl route. A lot quicker and better looking.

[Colin Crow]

Some acrylic suppliers will supply the red acrylic with the "holes" pre-cut and then supply the exact yellow and white letters to fit perfectly into the holes. Since it’s all cut by CNC there are usually no gaps and if you use a gap filling adhesive like tensol there should be no problems. To give extra support to large cut outs it’s necessary to overlap the rear of the letters with pieces of clear acrylic in a few places.

All the best illuminated signs are constructed this way as it offers uniform light transmission and longevity since there is no vinyl to fade.

Colin

[Tim Painter]

Thanks all.

First light box and I wanted to get the info on what is good practice, as I like to walk away from a job knowing it’s constructed in a way that I can be satisfied with.

Just like to ask those that have more years in this Trade than I have their advice as I respect the addition knowledge.

Mike I do have a few skills, wired 20 thousand wires all in pink PTFE as part of a flight simulator for Lucas Aerospace when I was 19 to military specs…….Just sussed which way to hold a screwdriver now…..a few years down the line but I’m there.

Thanks for all the gen

Tim.

Marcella I don’t know what your using but, you’ve got younger since I started this post…

:lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

[Marcella Ross]

quote Tim Painter:

Marcella I don’t know what your using but, you’ve got younger since I started this post…

:lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

what you after Tim??????????? :lol1: :lol1: :lol1: :lol1:

[Andy Gorman]

Ooh, spooky. I’m doing a Chinese at the moment with the same colour scheme. I’ve flooded the opal Perspex with red translucent (with white letters weeded out) then overlaying yellow onto some of it.

Perhaps they’re traditional Chinese colours or summink.

[Marcella Ross]

quote Andy Gorman:

Ooh, spooky. I’m doing a Chinese at the moment with the same colour scheme. I’ve flooded the opal Perspex with red translucent (with white letters weeded out) then overlaying yellow onto some of it.

Perhaps they’re traditional Chinese colours or summink.

there you go Tim ……………….. see! that’s the answer right enough! 😉

[Mike Smart]

Hi Tim
Just read of your dilemma. I have 40 years of practice with red panels, The correct way is to use red acrylic stencil cut it and close the stencil with what ever colour you want the letters to be. Red is the strongest pigment of all colours and will bleed thru all translucent colours that you apply over it. An example is put white acrylic or vinyl over red acrylic and the red will bleed thru result pink letters when you turn the lights on. The letter colour needs to be dense, black navy blue or bottle green mostly stop all light transmission so will work fine.
If you have the space to layout the sign panel and flood down colours of vinyl over opal acrylic, this will give you true colours, but remember vinyl will only ever shrink so fitting letters in will eventually leave gaps.
If a lot of colours are involved in the art work consider a full colour print.
If just big letters say yellow or white. Do it properly and stencil cut it.use acrylic. regards mike