Lighted Stage Lettering

Posting this one on behalf of my amazingly talented sister Anna. I helped out with the programming but I was out of state she did all the welding and hard work.

This is a really cool stage prop that is very easy to make.

Figure out what you'd like to use for your font, and load that on into your CAD software. Don't make the mistake that I did and forget to add your holes for the lights in your design. It would've saved so much time and a cut up finger if I would've remembered to add the holes to the design ahead of time. the plasma cutter is more than capable of cutting out small perfect uniform holes on the letters, but instead we ended up having to drill them all out.

The whole project is cut out of light gauge metal, I also ordered a bunch of 3" flat bar that we just cut to length as we needed it and then tack welded the sides onto the letter. No need to weld all the way around the whole thing, multiple tacks will suffice.

For the stands we used 1" metal conduit with a J-box connector on the letter side, and the bottom we just undersized the hole on the wood and forced it in with a hammer so that it can't come out. A metal stand would've looked much nicer but this was a cheap solution and the base isn't visible on stage anyway.

Next add the lighting, we used string lighting that had a screw on base, and you can't tell from the pictures but those are actually all Edison bulbs and look amazing when dimmed!

Now just set it up, maybe hook it up to a dimmer for a chase scene or flashing and have fun.