Channel Letter Refacing & LED Retrofit

Most failed signs aren't failed structures. The cabinet or the letter cans are usually sound — it's the faces that have yellowed and cracked and the lighting inside that's died. Replacing all of it costs several times what fixing it does, and you lose your existing permit position in the process.

What actually goes wrong

Acrylic faces yellow and go brittle under Colorado UV, then crack in the first hailstorm. Trim cap lets go and the face starts to lift. Old fluorescent lamps and their ballasts fail, usually a section at a time, so the sign spells something unintended for a few months before anyone calls. Neon tubes crack or lose gas. Transformers and power supplies quit outright.

Any of those can be fixed without touching the cans, the raceway, or the electrical service.

Refacing

New faces, new vinyl or new printed graphics, new trim cap. If you've rebranded, changed your name, or just want the sign to stop looking twenty years old, this is the job. On channel letters we quote it per letter, so a long run costs proportionally — it isn't a flat number.

LED retrofit

Pulling fluorescent lamps or dead neon and replacing them with LED modules cuts the power draw substantially, gets you an even face instead of hot spots and dark patches, and buys years before anyone has to go back up in a bucket. It's the single most common thing we're asked for on older cabinets and raceway letters.

One honest exception

We bend glass neon in our own shop, so we'll say this plainly: if your sign is genuinely old and the neon is part of what makes it worth looking at, we'd rather repair the neon than gut it for LED. A vintage sign converted to LED reads as a vintage sign that somebody ruined. If it's a 1990s cabinet with fluorescent tubes, retrofit it and don't think twice. If it's real neon with character, ask us before you decide.

Access and scheduling

We run our own 35-foot bucket truck, so we're not waiting on a rental or a third-party lift to fit you in. Most refacing and retrofit work happens in a single visit. We'll service signs we didn't build.

LED cabinet retrofits start at $650. Channel letter refacing is quoted per letter once we've seen the run length and the condition of the cans.

We have serviced signs across Denver and the Front Range for 23 years, which means we have seen most cabinet types from the inside.

Related work: lightbox cabinets, sign maintenance and neon repair.