Sign Material Question

[keith]

Hello Everyone,

I have a sign material question that I’d like to throw out there.

I’ve seen engraved signs up close that appear to be perfect on the outside. No imperfections, no paint marks, no nothing. It appears to be like a shiny plastic material…and this is possibly just the outside. Perhaps it’s like a sign foam on the inside. The material can be engraved, and the one I saw had gold leaf applied, and a black pin striping around the borders of the letters. But the overall surface of the sign is never touched. It doesn’t even appear that the sign maker painted the sign (just the letters and anything else that they cut) and that the raw stock came to the shop this way.

Does anyone have an idea of what that material is? I envisioned it to be like a SignFoam with a plastic coating. I use SignFoam a lot and when I paint it, I have imperfections like dents, scratched, paint marks…whatever.

My 2 questions are:

1. What kind of material is this? I’d like to try it for my next job, which is a 4 x 8 ft double sided job.
2. As far as the pin striping around gold leaf goes, what do you guys use? I can imagine that a cheap material will peel over time. Does anyone paint the pin striping on?

Thanks for your help!

-Keith

[rb99]

Is it Sintra?

Sintra with an aluminum sandwich?

[keith]

Hmmm, interesting. Thanks for the suggestion. I did some checking and it appears pretty thin. I'll dig some more as it might be useful in the future.

I guess another way to look at it is like this. I do outdoor engraved signs and typically use signfoam. I like signfoam because it cuts great. When I paint the signfoam (typically before I cut anything) there are always imperfections due to the painting (or due to the foam itself). I am impressed when I see an engraved sign that looks flawless. Almost like it was engraved out of a single sheet of plastic. The face of the sign is consistent, hard (like a plastic), and free from defects.

I am including a picture of a sign (I didn't make it) but it started me down this path of finding new material. It's not be best example, but you can see the dark green color. I don't think that was painted...I think that was the color of the material from the factory. Perhaps they glues a thin sheet onto something like signfoam?

Again, thanks for all your help.

Keith

[bob_reda]

how about king colorcore?

[jerry_stanek]

could it be vinyl over the surface

[keith]

Hmmm I never thought of that. This material was hard, so I'm thinking it wasnt vinyl. (unless that stuff can be hard...I always thought it was thin sheets with adhesive) I was just thinking it was a standard material...You order it whatever color you need...and thats it. Now that I think of it it might be a good idea to cover the signfoam with perhaps a sheet of colored PVC or something to get the same effect. Anyone ever try that? Take SignFoam, and glue a thin sheet of colored plastic, acrylic, PVC, whatever...to it and then engrave through both pieces as needed.

Then again, if you were going to do that perhaps you wouldn't need the expensive signfoam in the middle. Perhaps MDF would suffice for that.

Thanks everyone,

Keith

[letterman7]

Thickness will tell you everything. It's more than likely Signfoam or a variation of HDU. Surface preparation is everything - do it right and it'll look like a piece of artwork. My carved stuff isn't quite to that level, but I know some companies that are. The surface is perfect and smooth and you would swear that it was a cast sign face. Lots of ways to obtain that finish; generally the carving is done after the finish. Unless you have a spray booth or are willing to wet sand between coats, you'll never get that mirror smooth look. Personally, a sign that is too perfect doesn't do it for me. I like a little variation to give it that hand made appeal - unless the customer specifies otherwise!

[jhicks]

From the "untouched surface" description i would suggest you look at inoplas.com or romark. the material could be one of their clear modified acrylic sheets with a 2nd surface color finish like black. So one would reverse engrave through the thin black on the back and could then paint or fill the engraved area to the gold or color of choice. End result is a 1/16" or 1/8" clear outdoor modified acrylic with the black and text or engraved area clear or whatever color(s) you fill with. Have fun
innovative plastics manufactures in NC and has distributors throughout the us so you should have a supplier near you. Their sheets like Romark come in 24" x 48" not 4x8's though. Have fun