Channel Letters 101

The sign business has many choices of signs to select from. Electrical signs are one type that are very common amoung business owners. They are typically the first sign you see before you walk into a business, and it isn’t uncommon to see electrical signs inside buildings as well.

The two most common types of electrical signs on the exterior of busineses are channel letters and box signs. Sometimes the strip center or the city will dictate what type of signage can be installed, but as common as these are, they are usually allowed.

Channel letter electric signs consist of three parts.  The face, the returns, and the runway.  The face is the part of the channel letter that is typically made of an acrylic type material.   When in the designing phases, the acrylic pieces are cut with a CNC machine to exact specs.   The returns of the channel letters is the part that form the walls.  These can be constructed a couple ways.  The first is by hand, taking care to bend the metal into the shape of a letter.  And then there is the automated metal bender that is computer driven that will bend the returns automatically.  The last part of the channel letter construction I mentioned was the runway.  The runway on a set of channel letters is simply a metal box that all the letters are physically attached to.  You will find the wiring inside the runway, along with the transformer.

The colors are custom to what the customer wants, and the shapes and sizes channel letters can be designed are virtually limitless…unless you want something very small in size.

One function we perfom in our company is design, fabrication, and install of exterior building signage, including electrical signage. If you have signs that need upgrading, new building signage, or sign maintenace, give Texas Sign & Fabrication a call.