I’ve been experimenting with making neon signs and other lighting effects using paint that glows under a blacklight. In some ways, it has been a sucess. In other ways, a frustrating experience.
The problem is that there are some things that glow that shouldn’t. I suppose the best thing to do is to repaint and rearrange those things that shouldn’t glow, but that’s a lot of work and in some instances, not even possible. Is there a clear coating I can paint on that would stop the glowing effect? I tried a UV-resistant spray sold for protecting artwork against fading but it didn’t stop the glowing. Am I just out of luck here?
Also, a number a years ago, Model Railroader ran an article about this sort of thing, and the article mentioned a product called “Living Light” that I think was a clear liquid that would glow bright white under the blacklight. I’ve never been able to find this stuff. Is it still available or is there something else similar to it out there?
I’ve scoured several websites that cater to the “blacklight effects industry” but I haven’t been able to come up with much.
A related question: Any ideas for forming (or buying) raised letters? The commercial letters Ive seen are not even close to the lettering style I’d like to have, and trying to form them out of small wire is not far off from torture!
I always caveat my posts with “I’m no expert” so there you go.
A few questions and ideas for you,
What scale is this?
What size is the black light?
Are these billboards or signs on buildings?
Have you tried or do you know if those rice bulbs, using say the purple one would offer a similar affect? Using a billboard and a purple rice bulb as an example and set it up such that the rice bulb is like a spotlight shineing on the sign. If this is a sign on a building, perhaps the rice bulb mounted just to one or several sides of the sign using a shield (aluminum foil) to direct the light only over the sign. Just ideas I’m throwing at you, perhaps you’ve done some of these already. I’d suspect the only way to get done what you’re looking to do is to focus the light directly on what you want to show. Outside of shading the areas away from the blacklight you don’t want glowing, I’m not aware of a way, outside of white light, to stop a black light effect (e.g. if you place a black light on the right, next to a white light on the left, when looking to the right you’d see the glow, while items on the left wouldn’t because the white light is overwritting the black lights spectrum, hope you follow me here, there would be a bit of fine tuneing regarding brightness to achieve things I’d suspect though)
As for the letters, depending on what scale you’re talking about, perhaps printing them on some heavy card stock and cutting them out (assuming an HO or greater scale), if it is N or something this maybe difficult but still possible using an exacto or something to cut them out and glue them onto the sign, again though perhaps it isn’t the effect you’re looking for. Using this method though you’d be able to customize the characters anyway you want. There is also a “foam sheet” product (not foam core, much thinner than that) I know I’ve used on my kids projects befor
Using small lights aimed at the sign is a good idea. I’ve seen “purple” spotlights sold for use with Lemax Halloween villages and wondered if they would have the same effect as a blacklight.
One of my strong interests, aside from trains, is small traditional amusement parks. And since I don’t have the space for a railroad layout at the moment (but I expect this to change eventually), I satisfy my modeling urges by building amusement park models which I’ve incorporated into 2 X 5 amusement park diarama. I use the blacklight tricks for creating lights on the rides and assorted signs throughout the whole park so I’ve found it easier to mount a lan 18 inch tube blacklight above the park. It actually looks really cool to see the ferris wheel slowing turning with “lights” on the spokes (and it saves the headache of actually trying to wire such a thing with real lights).
Some of the worst “glowing” offenders are “snow” covered trees intended for use with a christmas village but that I “rebuilt” into use for my model. I tried to get as much of the “snow” off as possible, and covered the remainder with flocking, but it is amazing what still shows up under the black light. I suppose the solution is to replace the trees.
I also used Woodland Scenics EZ water (which is anything but) to make a small portion of a lake and that glows like a radioactive waste dump!
The park will eventually be rebuilt/incorporated into a larger model railroad layout. At that time, I can banish any glowing items to a blacklight-free zone!
An idea for the snow issue you describe is using a lamppost or similiar light source with a white rice bulb. The white light should overwrite the black light’s spectrum. So for exmample you’ve got this mini-florecent bulb over the diarama, if you place white lights almost like the type you’d see over a highway where there is a hood such that the light only shines down onto the snow, I’d hope to think it would “kill” the black lights ability to glow the snow, again hope you’re following me here :). The only issues I’d see here is how many lampposts would you need and if it would spoil the display you’ve built (btw that sounds really cool what you’ve done !!).
EDIT
Meant to add the similar requirement for the lake you’ve got, somehow mounting a white light between the lake and the black light would be needed to avoid that toxic pond
You can also get blacklight LEDs. That might be what the Lemax spotlights are. With smaller lights like LEDs you may be able to gain greater control over what is illuminated. As far as the snow and water…many synthetics glow under black light.
Like many other ideas, John Allen did it: the classic Gorre & Daphetid included many “neon signs” that were little more than fluorescent paint, with a hidden black-light bulb that turned on the neon. Painting windows in luminescent paint made them “glow,” albeit with a greenish tint.
One idea for killing the glow from things in the path of a black-light bulb is a spray of the soap that hunters use to “dim” their clothes: most modern laundry soap includes UV-reactive powder (the “brighteners” one hears about in advertising for laundry soap), which many game animals can see.
