Mildew/grime inside lit channel letters

[gnubler]

I got a call from a customer about "dirt" in a lit channel letter sign and if I could service it. Checked it out during daylight today and the signs looked fine, went back after dark and saw dark streaks running down the interior of the face of every letter, mostly pooling at the bottoms of the letters. They all look dingy and it looks to me like mildew or mold, or could be rust. I took a few pics but they came out overexposed, so I can't post an example right now. Wondering if anyone has ever encountered anything like this. I'm probably going to turn down the job, past my skill set, but still curious for future reference how they'd be cleaned.

I'll go back tomorrow night and try to get some good shots if anyone's interested.

 

[Boudica]

You must be well connected, or everyone around you is desperate. You get some really interesting calls for things I can only assume are folks stabbing in the dark for help.
Props for exploring the things you don't already master.

 

[gnubler]

Yes to your second comment. Major building boom going on, middle of nowhere, underserved market as far as signage goes. This particular call came from an out of state corporate office asking if I do service calls on lit channel letters, so I said I'd at least go check it out. I'll wait for my weekly lashing from Gino & his playground bullies on this one before I officially turn down the job.

 

[Boudica]

I don't know much about electric signs. Not our baliwick. Check it out, if you can spare the time. But pass it on. This isn't your fortay... But IMHO... It's good to be able to explain why they need to go elsewhere... For yadda yadda professional reasons. People respect " I can't do this, and here's why you need a specific expert".

 

[Boudica]

Pass it on to Tex. He needs to visit the IPNW!

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Too cold up there for Texans... Sunny and mid 80s here tomorrow.

You could just take the faces off the channel letters and clean them. One of the companies I do sub work for does these a few times a year. I take them down, they clean the faces and re-vinyl them, and I put them back up.

 

[Moze]

I obviously don't know what the regulations are up there.....but you may want to find out.

In Texas, if you're not a licensed sign electrician, you're not even supposed to do something as simple as removing the faces if it exposes the electrical. It doesn't matter if you touch the electrical or not. Doing so here in Texas could result in some pretty steep fines.

Food for thought.

 

[Johnny Best]

gnubler, I think you ought to take this job. Get up there and as JBurton and Tex said to remove the channel letter face and clean them off. Water is leaking in there and making the mildew and mold to form. Could be a new money maker for you.
There is also a whole other market of removing bird nests and their droppings in sign cabinets and channel letters.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

Sometimes you have to just dig into things to figure out what is going on rather than guessing. You also can't hard quote every job, sometimes when it comes down to that I will walk away because even when you think you're shooting high, it is often not enough. Giving a price range without a guarantee is usually sufficient in many cases, people just like to have a rough idea. Will it be more like $500 or $5000. Most service work is hourly so go out there, open it up and figure it out.

 

[gnubler]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I'm with Moze on dealing with the electrical aspect of this. Not completely clear on my state's regulations and I'm not licensed, which is why I haven't gotten into maintenance or even replacing lightbulbs during installs.

So you're saying the letter faces just pop off from the outside? We'd need a scissor lift to get up there, but it's about 20 degrees here now so whatever junk is in the letters is frozen.

 

[Notarealsignguy]

There are likely philips head screws around the perimeter. They are little pan heads that are pretty industry standard, and you should have some on hand when working on faces. You are likely to drop a few and its also likely you'll find the last person to service them did not replace all the screws, leaving a big ol' hole for water to run in. There should also be drain holes at the lowest point(s) on all of the letters. So for an M, that's 3 holes.
Call your states electrical licensing board and ask if there is a sign specialist license program, or if you need a license to remove a 'sign cover' while not messing with electrical components (this is essentially what you are already doing when replacing cabinet faces already). I'll wager you can do that much unlicensed, but always wise to check. Also, there should be a toggle switch on the raceway that the letters are mounted to. Always a good idea to flip it off to ensure nothing bites ya...

Then double check it by smacking the wire real quick

 

[Z SIGNS]

I would recommend a new sign or at the very least new faces.
Trying to make an old face look new cost the same as a new face in my shop. That's only fair cause what happens if you break something.
If they balked at that I would run away.
Even for an experienced sign mechanic working on old nasty channel letters feces, Oops I meant faces, is can of worms.
Un less you built it yourself or know exactly what makes that sign tic you don't know what you'll encounter.
Old cracked trim, some kind of funky stain that will not clean off, faces that don't really fit right, rusted screws, that one fastener that the head is stripped off. The list goes on and on.
Good luck

 

[visual800]

as a channel sign gets age the trimcap gets brittle. Once you touch it and its starts breaking then it your fault. I would not venture into this, too much labor

 

[Johnny Best]

I would recommend a new sign or at the very least new faces.
Trying to make an old face look new cost the same as a new face in my shop. That's only fair cause what happens if you break something.
If they balked at that I would run away.
Even for an experienced sign mechanic working on old nasty channel letters feces, Oops I meant faces, is can of worms.
Un less you built it yourself or know exactly what makes that sign tic you don't know what you'll encounter.
Old cracked trim, some kind of funky stain that will not clean off, faces that don't really fit right, rusted screws, that one fastener that the head is stripped off. The list goes on and on.
Good luck

This is really great advice.

 

[d fleming]

This is really great advice.

I think so too, but I also think the decision is best made with hands on and not from the ground. Nothing wrong with servicing signs, but there definitely are some doozies out there. There is one down the road from us that the plaza owner knows better than to call me to service. Next person to touch it might just have it all in his/her lap and the owner will not pay to have it properly repaired.

 

[Gino]

Why not call the Fire Marshall and tell them of your concerns and have them do a walk-through. See how many infractions are there. Go along as a consultant. I used to do that like 30 years ago for various municipalities around here. You could be helping a lotta people or maybe even saving lives.

 

[gnubler]

This is really great advice.

Agreed. Don't know what I would do without the feedback & tips I get from the forum.

Ran out there again over the weekend with my installer, first thing he said was "What if we break something?" Got a closer look and the letter faces look like yellow acrylic pieces enclosed in a housing (trimcap, as mentioned above?) fastened around with screws. Easy enough to remove, but then onto the cleaning part. How would you go about cleaning them up? There's no water source at the site, and it's the dead of winter. My installer said this is a job to revisit in April, or just replace the faces with new ones. I think at that point the customer needs to contact the original sign company that made them, yes?

 

[Johnny Best]

Give the owner a price for making new faces and leave it at that. Quit over thinking every job you come across. You will burn out in a year.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

You bring the letters to the shop to clean. Gnubler, do you know how to take a picture and post it? Gezz this is like pulling teeth out of a cat.

 

[gnubler]

JBurton, thanks for that info. These are the things I just don't know about until I know about them. I was wondering how the new letters would be cut/fabricated to fit into the existing frames without having an original art file.

Simmer down there, Tex. I did take pics but the night shots came out bad and I haven't made it back there again. I don't want to publicize the entire business name...how about a C for $500? It's a bad shot, but you can see some of the black junk inside. All the letters have it, some worse than others.