Building a Tune-To Sign

Ideas from members...

• A simple idea that I thought about using is just a painted plywood sign on an H-frame and a flood to light it up. and another idea was kind of like a reminder of the old Light-Bright, but with lights sticking out of the board instead of holes for light to come thru. Both will work and the cost should not be a whole lot, I would think under $50.

• you could go with white coroboard, cut out the letters on paper, put them on the coroboard then paint it with a couple coats of black paint, pull the letters off and you have a sign the coro is thin enough that you can light it behind with either mini lights (if ac) or a string of rgb.

• A sign doesn't have to be fancy. Paint a board white and stick some self-adhesive vinyl letters on it (cheap sets are available from Home Depot). Put it someplace where light can shine on it or run a cord to a cheap floodlight fixture that sticks into the ground. Or build a frame out of PVC or wood and mount a piece of white coro on it. Stick the vinyl letters on it and illuminate it from the back side. Or build a box out of 1x4's, mount a piece of coro on the front with the vinyl letters on it, put a string of multi-colored lights inside the box to illuminate it from the back and control it with a channel.

• I have tried something new each year from a simple wooden sign with white "97.5 FM" painted on a red background to my LED Matrix Gift Boxes to an even more elaborate ornament sign pixel element. I really think the simple painted sign was the most effective. I just put a little front spot light on it from the front. The truth is every year someone admits they didn't even know I used music in the show.

• I went w/ the Coro (I used "clear") and cut out the letters, affixed them to the Coro and spray painted it black and Removed the letters. Framed it w/ 2x2 and used RGB strip around the inside of the frame

• I did basically the same thing but used a fluorescent light fixture diffuser rather than Coro

• I got my first three years with a piece of craft store foam core board and some stick on foam letters.

• 1 2'x4' piece of plywood, Cover plywood with white paint, Acquire package of letters from office supply store, Attach letters to plywood, Paint plywood with black paint, Remove letters from sign to expose the now white letters, Attach sign to wooden stake, Light sign with flood light that is on a timer. I put it together 11 years ago with the plan to replace it. The sign still looks good and does the job so replacing it is a very low priority.

• Mine consists of a vinyl mask on a fluorescent diffusion panel and a plywood box. It's backlit with dumb RGB strip. I told the guy at the sign shop what I was doing it for and he thought it was so cool that he cut the mask for free!

• I did the same except I put cheap shelf paper (with adhesive) on the diffuser and projected my text on it. Trace with a sharpie, cut with a razor and peel all but the text. Flat black paint the field of the sign and peel text when dried. A string of C-9s behind and done. My sign since 2006.

• My first tune to sign was a clear shower curtain liner with the letters and numbers spelled out using electrical tape. It was mounted on a garage door and worked very nicely. only negative was needing to put some weights on the bottom to keep it from flapping in the wind.

• My very first tune-to was a piece of white coro and I bought a set of big stencils at an office supply store. Traced my sign on the coro in pencil and used a permanent marker to fill in the sign. Then put an LED spot light on it. Can't get much cheaper.

• Make a frame out of PVC to match the size of a banner. Light it with a small bulb.

• Purchase a coro tune-to sign grid from HolidayCoro.com and punch lights through it to match your frequency.