Cool!  I also love the old

Cool!  I also love the old signs.  Perhaps if the sign was made thick enough the interior could be illuminated with a single led and holes drilled in the sign sides to let the light out.  Or maybe fiber optics?

Hmmm... Now that's got me

Hmmm... Now that's got me thinking about getting the bulbs raised instead of drilled... and the possibilities of imitating neon, too.

I've got a couple of ideas I want to try...

You're definitely on to

You're definitely on to something there, and no doubt you'll refine it as you go.

It'll be a good look for your part of town.

Mike

Keep Posting

Now here's a another blog worth following. I'm getting ready to "rejuvenate" some buildings I have before putting them on the new layout. Modeling the 30's to the 50's fits right in with what you're doing. As you perfect things, give some more details on how you did it and what materials were used - thanks for this posting. Keep up the good work!

Raised bulbs

I think you are indeed halfway there. Smaller holes that are then filled with tiny round or rod shaped clear plastic beads or a minute short piece of fiber optics sticking out should do the trick. The rod shaped beads or fiber optics might possibly be made somewhat bulb shape by carefully heating them with a flame. Roughing up the beads surface could improve the amount of light showing through.

Hasbro Prototype

A great example of the potential of Light Pipe technology. Does remind me of the LITE-BRITE toys by Hasbro.   

The saga continues

The test worked so well I decided to build a "real" sign.

Here are the basic ABS components for the LED part of the sign

and when glued together:

A shot from the end.The Plexiglas sign is a friction fit into the slot

I wrapped this assembly in foil as well, to stop light leaks. Here it is installed in the building.

I've found some 1mm glass beads on line that will work well for the bulbs, they're just holes right now. Going to see if I can source some out locally first.

Here's the building back in it's natural habitat.

And, of course, the same shot at night. Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

Congrats!

I think you've nailed it!  I've been wondering about the odd sign for my 1950's Missouri town and one or two of these will pretty much nail the look I'm after, which in my case is non-neon.

BTW, are you using a blue LED strip for the atmospheric night lighting there?  Cool effect if so.

Wow!

Thanks for the kind words

Thanks all.

Steve, yes I am using RGB LED strips, along with straight white ones, to light my layout so I can make it any colour I want.

Ken, the Cecil sign was created and weathered in CorelDRAW, printed out and the paper glued on over the foil before drilling the holes.

Neon idea

Perhaps you could engrave the letters, and then bond in some fine clear rod to simulate the neon tubes.  For different colors, you could either try tinting the engraving or the tubes themselves, or use a separate "light pipe" panel with a different color light behind it.

Great job

Knew you'd get it

Now that you've got that

Now that you've got that figured out...

Make each letter a separate block, with tin foil sandwiched on the faces between them when you glue them together. Put your paper over the whole assembly and drill as above. Light each block individually with one or two LEDs. Hook them to a sequencer that lights them one at a time, then flashes them all together. 

Neon idea

I recall in MR or RMC several years back (mid/late '80s?) an article about how to make a neon sign with Plexiglas.  I wish I could find it with the magazine index that I looked in, but the index returned an article using florescent paints and black lights for neon signs.

Basically they took the piece of Plexiglas and had it engraved at a jewelry store and then edge light it as you've done here.  I think this is similar to the neon signs available at Walthers. ( http://www.walthers.com/exec/search?category=&scale=&manu=&item=&keywords=neon+sign&words=restrict&instock=Q&split=30&Submit=Search).

Out of curiosity have to tried to edge light without any covering of the Plexiglas?  You may need smaller LEDs that don't shine on the front/back of the Plexiglas only into it. I think you'll find that most of the light passes through the Plexiglas and is only reflected out the face where the holes/and/or engraving is done.  For the engraving you probably can go to a trophy place as well.  The key with the engraving is to have it done backwards on the "back" side of the sign.  That way when viewing the lighted sign from the front you see the glowing neon "tubes."  If I recall correctly they just used grain of wheat bulbs.

To get the correct color you could use a translucent paint rather than trying to buy orange leds.  For this application it might not be as critical. I read somewhere online (here I think, I'm having terrible luck finding things) if you use all white leds and then tint them for the correct color you'll have less brightness variations and all will use the same current limiting resistor. This may be more useful when making signals where you have three colors next to each other.

Neon...Sorta'

Been playing around a bit with simulating neon signs using what I have available to me around the house.

Using my Decalpro system I made up a black dry transfer of the background behind the neon tubes and left the tube areas blank. This system likes a good juicy toner cartridge and low humidity, and I have neither right now so the transfer was not the best. I applied this transfer to the Plexiglas and carefully scratched along the centres of the letters with a knife to disturb the  "light pipe" surface. This would work better if you engraved or lasercut them but alas, I don't have either of those machines lying around. I tinted the edge of the Plexi with an orange dry erase marker because it was handy. It coloured the letters not to badly. I figure a coloured LED or a piece of lighting gel would give a deeper colour.

Keep in mind that this sign is flat. simulating the actual 3D tubes would be a bit more involved. I'm figuring laser cut the letters out of some thin clear plastic and install them so they hover over the sign a bit and hopefully they will look like they are glowing.

All in all... it's a start

The temporary contraption: (keep in mind that these letters are only about 3/16" high)

And in the dark

Normally the Decalpro transfers are really sharp but these turned out a bit sloppy but I think it proves that the idea is viable.

Light bulbs!

I found a local source for some tiny glass micro beads yesterday. Turns out that Michaels carries them. The term bead is a bit of a misnomer as there is no hole in these things, they are just tiny glass balls. the smallest beads they carried scale out to a light bulb of about 4" in dia. a bit big for me. The micro beads, however, scale out to about 1.5 - 2", just about perfect for a bulb.

Here's a package of about a million light bulbs, er micro beads.

I placed a few of them onto some of the holes in the sign to see what they look like, they look like light bulbs!

I haven't turned the sign on yet as the bulbs are just sitting there and not glued down so I don't want to move the building. I figure I'll glue them down with a tiny blob of clear silicone.

I flipped the photo upright so the sign would be in it's normal orientation.

You can see that the top of the "C" has been lamped and the rest of it is just holes. This pic is blown up about 5 times actual size.

Well, it looks like I have a few light bulbs to screw in. Gonna" grab my ladder and head off down to the Cecil Hotel and get to work.

Ooooooooh - I like them!

Once you remove the mental block....

..... about scale all sort of neat things will show up under your very nose. Jose.

Edge Lit Perspex

Dear MRHers,

Yep, edge-lighting perspex without covering the surface is entirely do-able. Indeed, with a dremel and a stready hand you can DIY...

The base box is Foamcore, the red and green route LEDs are 3mm units, the press buttons are momentary units, and all "track routes" are hand-dremeled routed troughs in the _backside_ of the perspex...

The entire assembly was mounted behind the layout fascia, so all that's visible is the "control panel" section.

BTW, oddball "happy accident", the labels are simply white-on-black labels printed on a PC on regular PC printer paper. They were cut to size and glued using PVA onto the backside of the perspex. The PVA apparently presented enough of a "roughened surface" to bend/break the edge-lit light, and therefore the "white printing" appears to glow with a similar Blue to the Track route lines...

Not exactly the same, but similar concepts...

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Now these are the kind.............

..............of posts I just love!  Creative, innovative and inspiring!  I have used tiny green glass beads for power pole insulators in O scale and now have an idea what to use the clear glass balls in Michaels next to the beads.  Thanks, guys....................Peter

An idea we can use

Great ideas, thanks for sharing.

Neon lamps

If you used a strand of fiber optic cable and sanded it on its edge making it like this "D" as viewed from the end. Might make a plausible Neon tube. It would have to be short as I believe the light breaks out quick. Might need a light source at both ends. The "D" view is exaggerated. I think maybe a scratch from sand paper would work. Then again maybe not at all. Its been years since I looked into fiber optics.

Love the innovative thinking

Really good stuff, Rick.

I like your ideas

Thanks for the lighting ideas I like how this thread 

started out simple and is growing . great