Plastic Sign Face Material Testing
Break testing sign plastic including polycarbonate, modified acrylic and cast acrylic. Also describing the positives and negatives of each plastic for sign faces.
Describing and testing three sign plastic materials. Polycarbonate, modified acrylic and cast acrylic. The results were pretty interesting and really showed the differences of the three. In the video I refer to Polycarbonate as Lexan, Lexan is actually the trade name.
Each of the three plastic has positives and negatives. The Lexan is practically unbreakable, it can be bent, punctured and folded without flailing. Lexan does have a weakness though, when it is exposed to the sun it can yellow over time. On one side of the material the Lexan has a UV coating that protects it from the suns rays to prevent yellowing. It does still yellow over time. Modified Acrylic with the trade name Acrylite SG, has some of the break resistance of Lexan and does not yellow when exposed to the sun. This is our preferred material and the material we use for our channel letters and most electric signs. We were able to fold the Modified Acrylic completely completely in half, exceeding what we though was possible. Our final material tested was regular cast acrylic or what is known as Plexiglass. This material failed almost immediately and was unable to be bent past ninety degrees. We do not to use cast acrylic for any of our products.