Difference between revisions of "Building a Tune-To Sign"

Latest revision as of 14:19, 21 July 2026

There are many ways to build an effective Tune-To sign. The ideas below were contributed by DIYChristmas community members and range from simple painted signs to fully illuminated RGB displays. Choose the approach that best fits your budget, display style, and available materials.

Simple Painted Signs

A simple idea that I thought about using is just a painted plywood sign on an H-frame and a flood to light it up. Another idea was kind of like the old Lite-Brite, but with lights sticking out of the board instead of holes for light to come through. Both will work and the cost should not be a whole lot, I would think under $50.

I have tried something new each year from a simple wooden sign with white "97.5 FM" painted on a red background to my LED Matrix Gift Boxes to an even more elaborate ornament sign pixel element. I really think the simple painted sign was the most effective. I just put a little front spotlight on it. The truth is every year someone admits they didn't even know I used music in the show.

1 2'x4' piece of plywood, cover plywood with white paint, acquire a package of letters from an office supply store, attach letters to the plywood, paint the plywood black, then remove the letters to expose the white lettering. Attach the sign to a wooden stake and light it with a floodlight on a timer. I built mine 11 years ago intending to replace it, but it still looks good and does the job.

My very first Tune-To sign was a piece of white coroplast. I bought a set of large stencils from an office supply store, traced the lettering in pencil, filled it in with a permanent marker, and illuminated it with an LED spotlight. It doesn't get much cheaper than that.

Backlit Coroplast Signs

You could go with white coroplast, cut out the letters on paper, attach them to the coroplast, spray the board black, then remove the letters. The coroplast is thin enough to backlight with either mini lights or RGB strips.

A sign doesn't have to be fancy. Paint a board white and apply self-adhesive vinyl letters. Put it somewhere a spotlight can illuminate it, or build a PVC or wood frame and mount a sheet of white coroplast. Add vinyl letters and illuminate it from behind. You can even build a shallow box from 1x4 lumber, mount coroplast on the front, place a string of lights inside, and control it from a single channel.

I went with clear coroplast. I cut out the letters, attached them to the coroplast, spray-painted the panel black, removed the letters, framed it with 2x2 lumber, and mounted RGB strips around the inside of the frame.

Diffuser Panel Signs

I did basically the same thing but used a fluorescent light fixture diffuser rather than coroplast.

Mine consists of a vinyl mask applied to a fluorescent diffuser panel mounted in a plywood box. It's backlit with dumb RGB strips. I told the local sign shop what I was building and they thought it was so neat they cut the mask for free.

I did the same except I covered the diffuser with inexpensive adhesive shelf paper. I projected the text onto it, traced it with a marker, cut it with a razor knife, peeled away everything except the lettering, painted the background flat black, then removed the lettering. A string of C9 bulbs behind the panel completed the sign. I've been using it since 2006.

Foam Board and Banner Signs

I used a piece of craft-store foam board and stick-on foam letters for my first three years.

My first Tune-To sign was made from a clear shower curtain liner with the letters and numbers created using black electrical tape. It was mounted on my garage door and worked very well. The only drawback was needing weights along the bottom to keep it from flapping in the wind.

Make a frame from PVC to fit the size of a banner and illuminate it with a small light bulb.

Commercial Coroplast Sign

HolidayCoro offers a pre-cut coroplast Tune-To sign that can be illuminated by inserting lights through the holes.

Other Modern Options

Today many displays use pixel matrices, P5/P10 LED panels, or small LED displays as Tune-To signs. While these provide greater flexibility and animation, the simple techniques above remain inexpensive, reliable, and easy to build.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Ideas from members...
+''There are many ways to build an effective '''Tune-To''' sign. The ideas below were contributed by DIYChristmas community members and range from simple painted signs to fully illuminated RGB displays. Choose the approach that best fits your budget, display style, and available materials.''
-* A simple idea that I thought about using is just a painted plywood sign on an H-frame and a flood to light it up. and another idea was kind of like a reminder of the old Light-Bright, but with lights sticking out of the board instead of holes for light to come thru. Both will work and the cost should not be a whole lot, I would think under $50.
+----
-* you could go with white coroboard, cut out the letters on paper, put them on the coroboard then paint it with a couple coats of black paint, pull the letters off and you have a sign the coro is thin enough that you can light it behind with either mini lights (if ac) or a string of rgb.
+== Simple Painted Signs ==
-* A sign doesn't have to be fancy. Paint a board white and stick some self-adhesive vinyl letters on it (cheap sets are available from Home Depot). Put it someplace where light can shine on it or run a cord to a cheap floodlight fixture that sticks into the ground. Or build a frame out of PVC or wood and mount a piece of white coro on it. Stick the vinyl letters on it and illuminate it from the back side. Or build a box out of 1x4's, mount a piece of coro on the front with the vinyl letters on it, put a string of multi-colored lights inside the box to illuminate it from the back and control it with a channel.
+* A simple idea that I thought about using is just a painted plywood sign on an H-frame and a flood to light it up. Another idea was kind of like the old Lite-Brite, but with lights sticking out of the board instead of holes for light to come through. Both will work and the cost should not be a whole lot, I would think under $50.
-* I have tried something new each year from a simple wooden sign with white "97.5 FM" painted on a red background to my LED Matrix Gift Boxes to an even more elaborate ornament sign pixel element. I really think the simple painted sign was the most effective. I just put a little front spot light on it from the front. The truth is every year someone admits they didn't even know I used music in the show.
+* I have tried something new each year from a simple wooden sign with white "97.5 FM" painted on a red background to my LED Matrix Gift Boxes to an even more elaborate ornament sign pixel element. I really think the simple painted sign was the most effective. I just put a little front spotlight on it. The truth is every year someone admits they didn't even know I used music in the show.
-* I went w/ the Coro (I used "clear") and cut out the letters, affixed them to the Coro and spray painted it black and Removed the letters. Framed it w/ 2x2 and used RGB strip around the inside of the frame
+* 1 2'x4' piece of plywood, cover plywood with white paint, acquire a package of letters from an office supply store, attach letters to the plywood, paint the plywood black, then remove the letters to expose the white lettering. Attach the sign to a wooden stake and light it with a floodlight on a timer. I built mine 11 years ago intending to replace it, but it still looks good and does the job.
-* I did basically the same thing but used a fluorescent light fixture diffuser rather than Coro
+* My very first Tune-To sign was a piece of white coroplast. I bought a set of large stencils from an office supply store, traced the lettering in pencil, filled it in with a permanent marker, and illuminated it with an LED spotlight. It doesn't get much cheaper than that.
-* I got my first three years with a piece of craft store foam core board and some stick on foam letters.
+== Backlit Coroplast Signs ==
-* 1 2'x4' piece of plywood, Cover plywood with white paint, Acquire package of letters from office supply store,  Attach letters to plywood, Paint plywood with black paint, Remove letters from sign to expose the now white letters, Attach sign to wooden stake, Light sign with flood light that is on a timer. I put it together 11 years ago with the plan to replace it. The sign still looks good and does the job so replacing it is a very low priority.
+* You could go with white coroplast, cut out the letters on paper, attach them to the coroplast, spray the board black, then remove the letters. The coroplast is thin enough to backlight with either mini lights or RGB strips.
-* Mine consists of a vinyl mask on a fluorescent diffusion panel and a plywood box. It's backlit with dumb RGB strip. I told the guy at the sign shop what I was doing it for and he thought it was so cool that he cut the mask for free!
+* A sign doesn't have to be fancy. Paint a board white and apply self-adhesive vinyl letters. Put it somewhere a spotlight can illuminate it, or build a PVC or wood frame and mount a sheet of white coroplast. Add vinyl letters and illuminate it from behind. You can even build a shallow box from 1x4 lumber, mount coroplast on the front, place a string of lights inside, and control it from a single channel.
-* I did the same except I put cheap shelf paper (with adhesive) on the diffuser and projected my text on it. Trace with a sharpie, cut with a razor and peel all but the text. Flat black paint the field of the sign and peel text when dried. A string of C-9s behind and done. My sign since 2006.
+* I went with clear coroplast. I cut out the letters, attached them to the coroplast, spray-painted the panel black, removed the letters, framed it with 2x2 lumber, and mounted RGB strips around the inside of the frame.
-* My first tune to sign was a clear shower curtain liner with the letters and numbers spelled out using electrical tape. It was mounted on a garage door and worked very nicely. only negative was needing to put some weights on the bottom to keep it from flapping in the wind.
+== Diffuser Panel Signs ==
-*  My very first tune-to was a piece of white coro and I bought a set of big stencils at an office supply store. Traced my sign on the coro in pencil and used a permanent marker to fill in the sign. Then put an LED spot light on it. Can't get much cheaper.
+* I did basically the same thing but used a fluorescent light fixture diffuser rather than coroplast.
-*  Make a frame out of PVC to match the size of a banner. Light it with a small bulb.
+* Mine consists of a vinyl mask applied to a fluorescent diffuser panel mounted in a plywood box. It's backlit with dumb RGB strips. I told the local sign shop what I was building and they thought it was so neat they cut the mask for free.
-[[File:SIGN1.JPG|400px]]  [[File:SIGN2.JPG|400px]]
+* I did the same except I covered the diffuser with inexpensive adhesive shelf paper. I projected the text onto it, traced it with a marker, cut it with a razor knife, peeled away everything except the lettering, painted the background flat black, then removed the lettering. A string of C9 bulbs behind the panel completed the sign. I've been using it since 2006.
+== Foam Board and Banner Signs ==
+* I used a piece of craft-store foam board and stick-on foam letters for my first three years.
+* My first Tune-To sign was made from a clear shower curtain liner with the letters and numbers created using black electrical tape. It was mounted on my garage door and worked very well. The only drawback was needing weights along the bottom to keep it from flapping in the wind.
+* Make a frame from PVC to fit the size of a banner and illuminate it with a small light bulb.
+[[File:SIGN1.JPG|400px]]
+[[File:SIGN2.JPG|400px]]
+== Commercial Coroplast Sign ==
+* HolidayCoro offers a pre-cut coroplast Tune-To sign that can be illuminated by inserting lights through the holes.
+[[File:CORO_TUNE_TO1.JPG|400px]]
+[[File:CORO_TUNE_TO2.JPG|400px]]
+== Other Modern Options ==
+Today many displays use pixel matrices, P5/P10 LED panels, or small LED displays as Tune-To signs. While these provide greater flexibility and animation, the simple techniques above remain inexpensive, reliable, and easy to build.