White or Clear acrylic for push through.

[Ryze Signs]

I have a customer who specified 1/2" clear acrylic with white vinyl applied to the faces for a push through cabinet sign. I have usually used white acrylic in the past so I don't have to apply vinyl. I would think white would be better because the vinyl won't get destroyed by the sun.

That got me thinking that maybe it's for better lighting? What do you guy's prefer and why?

 

[GaSouthpaw]

White is what we go with nearly universally, because then the customer won't complain that they can see the LEDs along the edges (when you get the right angle, they're glaringly obvious). This keeps you from having to adding yet another layer of vinyl- the diffuser they're going to want on the back to block off the lights.

To avoid "arguments" like that, make a sample with a clear letter on one side and a white letter on the other to show them which actually looks better.

As for applying vinyl, we plotter cut any need vinyl just a hair undersized (.02", usually) for application, rather than hand trimming (which is a last resort).

 

[VizualVoice]

I had to refurbish a push-through for a church a couple years ago. It was clear with white on the facing of the letters and they edge-painted the stand-out letters blue. It was quite stunning when it was new. But about 6 years later when I got to it, the vinyl had shrank away from the edges leaving a nasty clear uneven band around most of them, patches missing, and the painted edges had chalked up. It looked bad driving by during the day, and REALLY BAD at night and had for some time before they finally decided to spend the money to repair it. After redoing that (repainting and automotive clear coating the edges, then translucent white vinyl on the faces) it lasted about 5 years until a logo change had me replacing the whole thing. This was in strong Florida sun, so you mileage might vary, but I'd definitely push them into the white if you can. Here's the before. Can't find the after pics right now.

 

[John Miller]

We use clear acrylic and then sand blast it to achieve a frosted effect. 1/2” frosted acrylic lets much more light through achieving a much brighter letter.

 

[MrDav3C]

I think it very much depends on how you / the client want this to look.

If you are covering the entire face with a translucent print / vinyl then we would use clear.

If the acrylic is going to be visible i.e. no print in certain areas then we would use opal / white acrylic.

You can also get different densities of acrylic (not thickness) which allow for different levels of light transmission.

 

[Ryze Signs]

Thank you all for the replies. I'll fire up the lasers tomorrow and make some samples for comparison and post som pictures.

 

[bowtievega]

We have used both extensively. We have used 7328 1/2" white for letters and it works great but it does look different than clear with white translucent vinyl faces. 7328 white is much less bright and you get some darker shadows around the edges and corners. Doesn't look bad, just different. It is nice to not have to apply vinyl and it will hold up better over time. Cons are you are limited in thickness of letters. Any thicker than 1/2" they are too dim unless you use 2407 white but then during the day the letters don't look as white which is usually a deal breaker for us. We make alot of signs with 3/4" and 1" clear with translucent vinyl faces as well for more of a dimensional look that some customers prefer. When we use clear we sand the backs of the letters pretty heavily to create a diffuser which helps alot. We use 3m or Arlon DPF 6500 for vinyl.

 

[JBurton]

Clear, always backed up with white lexan. Saves the effort of placing tons of studs when there are numerous small shapes, and even if studs fail, nearly all have to fail for the lexan to stop holding the letters in. Lexan will barely yellow since it's not directly in the sun.
To color the faces, apply vinyl a day or two before routing. Arlon 6500 clear with 3270 lam is great for this, otherwise 3m 3630 for specd colors.

 

[MikePro]

+1 backing acrylic with polycarb. much more resilient and you can run your acrylic with minimal ledges.

 

[Ryze Signs]

I always back my acrylic with acrylic and glue them together as they are all laser cut and not routed. The only thing I cut on a router is ACM and polycarb.

 

[White Haus]

I always back my acrylic with acrylic and glue them together as they are all laser cut and not routed. The only thing I cut on a router is ACM and polycarb.

So you through cut the letters on your laser then glue in place onto backer panel?

Is there any risk of doing it this way vs hogging out a thicker sheet?

 

[MJ-507]

I have a customer who specified 1/2" clear acrylic with white vinyl applied to the faces for a push through cabinet sign. I have usually used white acrylic in the past so I don't have to apply vinyl. I would think white would be better because the vinyl won't get destroyed by the sun.

That got me thinking that maybe it's for better lighting? What do you guy's prefer and why?

We use White 7328 acrylic and mill it down leaving a shoulder for attaching the letters to the cabinet. It's a lot less labor than gluing letters to a separate panel and there are no worries about the adhesive failing.

 

[JBurton]

Is there any risk of doing it this way vs hogging out a thicker sheet?

We did this once... It saved a ton of routing time, but we found the light coming through the glue caused shadows in the vinyl. This was a white backer made from poly, glued with channelbond to 3/4 white acrylic. We then tried to do full coverage of glue, which is a mess, as well as just a perimeter of glue, which allowed water intrusion that froze and popped the acrylic right off the polycarbonate, leaving chunks of one still welded to the other (I don't recall if it was acrylic to poly or poly to acrylic which stayed). White acrylic would probably have eliminated the shadow issue, but in this instance it was a square pushed through aluminum, with a leaf cut from that, which was the white lexan with no acrylic acting as the leaf, so large areas of the push through acrylic were not able to be lipped behind aluminum. In the end we recut everything, and glued white poly in the void cut region of a whole area hogged out of acrylic.

 

[Ryze Signs]

We did this once... It saved a ton of routing time, but we found the light coming through the glue caused shadows in the vinyl. This was a white backer made from poly, glued with channelbond to 3/4 white acrylic. We then tried to do full coverage of glue, which is a mess, as well as just a perimeter of glue, which allowed water intrusion that froze and popped the acrylic right off the polycarbonate, leaving chunks of one still welded to the other (I don't recall if it was acrylic to poly or poly to acrylic which stayed). White acrylic would probably have eliminated the shadow issue, but in this instance it was a square pushed through aluminum, with a leaf cut from that, which was the white lexan with no acrylic acting as the leaf, so large areas of the push through acrylic were not able to be lipped behind aluminum. In the end we recut everything, and glued white poly in the void cut region of a whole area hogged out of acrylic.

I have yet to have any issues with the acrylic Coming in glued. I always use acrylic for the push through and the backer and acrylic adhesive. I have yet to find anything that glues well to polycarbonate. The glue can leave shadows on clear acrylic which is another reason I prefer the white.

 

[Ryze Signs]

We use White 7328 acrylic and mill it down leaving a shoulder for attaching the letters to the cabinet. It's a lot less labor than gluing letters to a separate panel and there are no worries about the adhesive failing.

I laser cut all my letters and use the cabinet face as a template to glue them to the backer. I avoid using the router if possible. It's slow, noisy, messy, can't cut sharp inside corners, and leaves a poor surface finish compared to the laser.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

I laser cut all my letters and use the cabinet face as a template to glue them to the backer. I avoid using the router if possible. It's slow, noisy, messy, can't cut sharp inside corners, and leaves a poor surface finish compared to the laser.

Hate to disparage, but that's either not a very good router, or not a very good operator. Our router cuts on plastics almost never require finish work, and we do a ton of push-thru (have 14 sheets' worth for just one order waiting for assembly at the moment).

 

[JBurton]

I have yet to find anything that glues well to polycarbonate

Not that I recommend it, channel bond will glue the two together, albeit with a pretty gnarly effect. I'll find a picture. I guess that does nix the 'glues well' aspect, but the attachment is more than solid.

but that's either not a very good router

IDK, comparing a laser to a router, it's guaranteed to be noisier, messier, and literally can't cut sharp corners, and the edges will never look polished right off the table. It doesn't matter if the operator is a gen z kiddo or a boomer, it will always have these characteristics, until someone comes up with a zero thickness bit...
I personally don't like the 'clear as glass' look that a laser gives, I prefer the slightly frosted look a good router will produce, but to each his own.
Concerning inside corners, I just round every corner down to a .07" radius and cut with a .125" bit with a .02" tolerance.

 

[Bxtr]

We've always used clear and backed it in white translucent vinyl. The vinyl goes to the edge of the back of the acrylic which is a good 1/4" beyond where it pushes through. We haven't had any issues to doing this way.

 

[JBurton]

We've always used clear and backed it in white translucent vinyl. The vinyl goes to the edge of the back of the acrylic which is a good 1/4" beyond where it pushes through. We haven't had any issues to doing this way.

Right, but why waste the effort and material to stick white on clear when you could buy white acrylic/poly?

 

[Ryze Signs]

Hate to disparage, but that's either not a very good router, or not a very good operator. Our router cuts on plastics almost never require finish work, and we do a ton of push-thru (have 14 sheets' worth for just one order waiting for assembly at the moment).

The router is terrible (Laguna entry level). The parts come out fine for router standards, but the laser parts come out with perfect glass finish edges. The best part is the acrylic doesn't move. I just set it on laser bed and even tiny parts stay put.