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Vacuum-formed Sign Faces for Channel Letters
 Vacuum-formed
channel letter sign faces are an old art.
Before the advent of flexible sign
face material it was necessary to form plastic to place
reinforcement “ribs” in large faces to help prevent the
wind from breaking them. The best-looking way to do
this was to raise the lettering, and to also raise the
face close to its edges.
This was critically important in
Lexan® or polycarbonate faces because the basic material
is so soft that even light winds bow flat faces.
They blow out of the sign in one piece, but they blow out.
The vacuum-forming process is not
used often in large modern signs because large modern
signs do not have plastic or polycarbonate faces, they
have flexible sign faces.
Except for cheap signs, where the
face is “blistered” forward 2” or so to get the plastic
away
 from
the interior lamps without spending money making the metal
sign frame of a sufficient thickness; to reduce cost.
Most people think that this has a
“cheap” look, and therefore it is used mostly in secondary
“program” signs; not business identification signs.
That said, the process can be used to
create attention-getting visual effects, such as the
airplane in the picture which would look cheap if it were
flat!
Or,
channel letter faces that separate the sign from the crowd
even when it is not illuminated.
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