Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Shell Sign Question

I'm starting to repair this sign and rewire it so it can hang once again.Does anybody know how to seperate the 2 plastic panels on this sign? They appear to be bonded together by heat.

Have you tried removing each of the braces and using a putty knife driven along the join line?

Ya..I did try this but it is so brittle that it will end up cracking more.This sign is so fragile.I just tried heating up the plastic as well with a heat gun but cannot split the seam.I'm thinking of possibly cutting carefully with a jigsaw in the middle of the join line.

I wouldn't use the jigsaw, you're more likely to cause more damage as the sawing motion will cause even more flex.

One thought in my mind is you could use a heat knife maybe like they use with cutting and shaping foam. That may break whatever sealing they used to join the two sides.

An alternate solution is not to pry open the case at all. Instead since you have holes going into the cabinet use some light rope and snake it inside and let that be the light source. Then you won't have to worry about destroying the body and can always remove it if a better solution becomes available.

Seems odd they made a light-up sign w/ no way of changing the bulbs.
I agree, Hot Knife or Hot Wire.

I have the later version frame they made which allows one side to be hinged down to replace blown lights. I wonder if that's why it was created.

This sign does have a access door on the other side not pictured to change the bulbs but it is too small to get in there to work on the fixtures.I will try my hot knife we use for cutting out windshields but it has a short blade.The joining flange looks to be approx 1 1/2" wide and 1/4" thick.Plenty thick to try a sawblade.I like the idea of rope lights but i have to replace the threaded rods on the end of the hangers so i figured a total rebuild was in order.

Find someone that builds Ships in a Bottle to work on fixture!
Would be time consuming, but a hacksaw blade in hand might be a safer way, cutting on back stroke.

Good one DB! There should be lots of empty bottles for the ship builder after this job is done.I tried the hot knife but the heat from it changes the yellow colour to a white..yikes!I tried the jigsaw and this seems to work using 1/4 throttle and a course blade.It's going to be a slow process but this should work.

Would like to see picks when you have it apart Daryl.

I agree with the hot knife it will
For sure work and there is little risk of it shaterring the sign.

I seperated the panels with no further damage after 6 hours of cutting.Here are the pics of the frame.The fixtures can be serviced by unthreading the pipe cap at one end which has a threaded rod attached.The fixture assembly slides off the solid rod and out the access hole.

The last set of pictures will save someone else from having to separate their sign to remove light bar.

By posting as an attachment pictures will remain long after the time limit of a Free Hosting Site [Image Shack is 1 year after last accessed].

I hope this does help someone else as it's very time consuming to cut them apart.The one panel is really cracked bad from top to bottom and looks like the sign may have been dropped at one time.It's almost beyond repair but it had to come apart to be fixed properly.

I was able to finish the sign over the holidays and I wanted to show the pics and thank everyone for their helpful advice.Happy New Year to all and thanks again.

Looks GREAT! Brady

Nice result!

Looks fantastic a very nice job.

Looks great!

Thanks for all the great comments.