Neon-flex on composite tray, advice fabricating or help sourcing please?

[Kevin Mahoney]

Could be wrong here David, but that image doesn’t look like neon flex to me, can’t see how the dots could be done like that, the stuff I’ve used can only be cut every 25mm, some are every 50mm & it certainly isn’t flexible enough to fabricate a full stop like those in the picture. Its bendy enough alright but doesn’t want to stay in the desired shape without a physical fixing, I tried silicone but not with any success, ended up drill a thousand holes for micro zip ties.

I have seen some of these led neon signs online & they look great but never seen one up close, could possibly be vacuum formed or very heavily photoshopped, the neon flex I had wouldn’t lend itself to being spliced neatly enough for letters intersecting & overlapping. Maybe this is why Applec jacked the price up, could be trickier than it seems.

Will they not settle for a fret cut tray with push through acrylic text & backlit?

[Karen White]

i love this stuff, but im not good with electrical type things.

i would actually like “something” at home done with this stuff.

[Erdy Cem]

This doesn’t look like flex neon at all.. You cannot achieve that bendy with flex neon. It’s probably vacuum formed.. We do vacuum formed but vacuums work out relatively more expensive if it’s a single unit as carving the template takes most cost.

In the past we played a lot with flex neon, and you can never achieve what they show or advertise for product photos so we gave up. As Kevin said, they are either photoshoped or vacuum formed.

[RobertLambie]

I have seen up-close in a shop, the type shown in the Daves photo and it is as it looks.
it is not all folded back on itself very tightly. some parts are cut and mitred by a Stanley knife and then glued.
See attached picture with red arrows. these areas aren’t overlapping or passing thru each other. simple snipped and glued.

As for the full stops. I think they could be the narrow flex neon either just folded and placed as a dot or rolled into a circle as a dot. perhaps just the thicker stuff as a one-inch line that appears as a dot in the fuzzy picture? keep in mind the glow from this stuff makes the neon appear fatter than it actually is.

The time-consuming part for me, on anything I have used it on, is the soldering of some bits here and there to use up off-cuts. really depends on the design how often a solder may be required, if at all.
The one I show in the photo that I made is not soldered at all. As I say, I think it comes down to the design and how you join/start a new bit of neon.

I have 4 large neon signs being done starting next week. I will get some pictures once complete.

Dave, you can see in the picture below I have made this and mounted it onto a pan to purposely give a more 3d look to the sign. this made life easier as it allowed me to hide the power transformer behind the sign and just have the dangling cable left over from the complete sign.
It meant I could drill the hole to feed the cable through the wall, but before I did, I plugged it in to show it works! cut the plug off, feed cable through the hole behind the sign so nothing is visible and he gets his electrician to hardwire it into the mains.

https://youtu.be/0ejl3PWkMg8

[David Rogers]

What supplier Rob?

We do a LOT of neon flex internal pelmets, shop eaves, feature lighting on appliances and window surrounds but all straight or basic curves. Minimal soldering as too much faffing.

would advise putting into a pvc profile track if you plan on doing this…don’t use the useless clips!

[RobertLambie]

I use an aluminium lightweight profile for housing ours.

Sent you a PM David.