Illuminated exterior sign

Projects
1

Ive been asked by a friend for a price on an exterior grade illuminated sign for his business as the bids hes gotten from the pros have been a little too rich for him as his business is still growing. I think I have the method figured out but id like some feedback.

To give a sense of scale the sign would be made up of a logo and three words spanning a total length of approx 20ft with each letter being approx 16" tall.

The first option I gave him is an non-illuminated sign that would use separate up-lights in his landscaping. this would be done with 1/2" marine grade plywood protected with totalboat penetrating epoxy and painted with exterior grade paint. each letter would get cut out separately and would be secured to a backer board that would get attached to the exterior wall.

Now, I know how I would do a small scale illuminated sign, stack layers of plywood and acrylic like this project:

but it seems like an overly complicated way to make something this large. I am thinking that building a “light box” with a translucent white acrylic face and simply gluing/securing the letter cutouts to the face of this box would be more feasible.

Any input would be helpful!

2

Just cutting into acrylic with a V bit and then lighting the acrylic from its edges with LED strips produces good results.

This is a small example

This method does work quite well even with large pieces of acrylic.

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3

That’s a lot of acrylic…maybe make each letter it’s own “illuminated sign”?

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4

I would consider pvc in place of marine plywood.

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5

I have used Corian for outside shelving.
It cuts beautifully.

Love the video.

6

Any progress on the sign?

7

What type of bit and feeds/speeds do you use with Corian?

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Use the same bits and speeds as you would use for wood.
It cuts like butter.
I made these for my daughter.

IMG_20180430_204805819
IMG_20180430_2048058192851Ă—2138 1.72 MB
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IMG_20180430_2048426022851Ă—2138 1.7 MB

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9

Some progress. I came to the conclusion that the most affordable way to make a sign like this would be to NOT light each letter individually as it’s doable but would very labor intensive with an xcarve size/depth limit.

I made a prototype sign of how I’d construct it, here is a pic of it.

30F8450C-1FD0-4BA4-A590-5F218DB103F9
30F8450C-1FD0-4BA4-A590-5F218DB103F92851Ă—2138 2.03 MB

This method can easily be scaled by individually cutting the letters from 1/4 or 1/2 material and securing them to a larger sign panel.

I’ve also learned of the existence of exterior grade MDF which seems like a good option for a painted application.

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10

I can see where lighting up each letter would be very labor intensive, I have never tried the exterior MDF, I will have to do a google search. Mark mentioned PVC in place of plywood, PVC works good for exterior signs and you can also paint it to the color you need. HDU is a great material to use but its expensive, I cut some numbers out over the weekend using 1 inch HDU and it cut great on the X-Carve. Good luck with your project and take pictures during and after.

IMG_0286
IMG_02863024Ă—4032 2.21 MB

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11

Are you telling us you cut those letters on the XCarve?

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No problem carving relief patterns (3D topside) using Xcarve.
Easel wont be able to make those files but other programs do + export gcode that Easel can accept.

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Did you just use a rounder bit?

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Yes I cut those on the X-Carve and used a half inch round over bit on the edges.The bit that I used to cut them out is in the router, it’s a half inch cut with a quarter inch shaft. I purchased the bit in a set from the big box store.
The reason I used a half inch bit to cut them out is because the round over bit that I have has a half inch bearing on it and I wanted all the edges to be rounded.
The round over bit was used on my router table, the numbers were cut out straight on the X-Carve.

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