Opaque coating for backlit channel letter

[GVP]

Hello,

We have been given by the customer, an acrylic faced channel letter with a wide plastic trimcap return, to replace a broken letter on a customers sign. The new letter has just red acrylic for the face, but the old ones have a black coating of some discription making the red acrylic opaque. This is because they are back-lit by neon (i.e. halo effect) I guess the black coating is to stop the hot spots showing through the faces.

My question is, since the replacement letter doesn't have this black coating, what can I use to have the same effect - some kind of paint? I can't imagine vinyl would work?

Any advice appreciated.

 

[J Hill Designs]

maybe its 3m blockout vinyl (comes both white adhesive/black face and black adhesive/white face) most likely white adhesive side as to not alter the look of the red acrylic

 

[DesireeM]

We've used Avery opaque black vinyl on a backlit acrylic sign face as the background and cut out the text so that the only part that lit up was the cutout section and the black vinyl blocked the light completely. There was no wash-out effect at all. Though I'm sure black paint would do the same thing.

Here's a photo of the sign lit up. You can't see the black background but I guess that's the point.

 

[Moze]

maybe its 3m blockout vinyl (comes both white adhesive/black face and black adhesive/white face) most likely white adhesive side as to not alter the look of the red acrylic

This ^

 

[MikePro]

since the letter is already trim-capped, you're gonna have a heck of a time applying vinyl and covering-up every nook/cranny of the letter inside the pan of that letter. paint it
white/lightgrey acrylic primer and black acrylic polyurethane paint. Needs the primer, because acrylic is like glass... paint doesn't want to bond so easily, but the primer will give it some tooth. easily purchased from a hardware store.