Indoor backlit printed (what for backing)

Just printed a small 30"x30" backlit on some SLB-7 (Intelicoat) media. It has the diffused backing with a matte front finish. The exisiting 30"x30" white lexan was lettered and I cleaned it up and will use that as backing support for the new printed backlit. It's low enought that kids could touch or push on it so it would fall in with out backing support. All looks good there but....

I will have a menu board to do, higher up out of reach, that right now has existing white lexan and again cut vinyl lettering. This one is in two parts 22" x 72" on each part. Total of 12 feet together. I will be printing the backlit on the SLB-7 media so it could be one piece. I don't want to clean off that existing menu board ( now that I know how long it took to do the 30" x 30" one) so I was wondering what could be used to give the SLB-7 media the support in the sign frame? Would it have to be backed with something?

I'm thinking of using some .060 regular clear lexan.

Any thoughts?

 

It is an option to re use but it took me 1 1/2 hrs to clean off the 30"x30" piece, however it came out like new. The menu board is all cut small small letters and numbers......and lots of them..... The clear lexan would only run $80 ish and cleaning could take 4 plus hrs.

Is there a way to put in a backlit film without backing or would others always use a backer of some sort?

Thanks for the input Ddarlak