Tara and I got married this month and whilst doing the prep work for the wedding I came across some large marquee lettering that was for hire. After talking with the hiring company and being given a quote that was absolutely ridiculous, I told Tara that I was going to build our own. Much to her dismay, I did build them, and they were a hit!

Saying that, If you were to build your own, these are the two biggest questions I would have you ask yourself. 1. Where will you put them? (If you want to place them in front of a table, do not make them 1 meter high like I did.) 2. Cost of materials – Depending on where you get the MDF, you may actually be better off hiring them. Time vs Materials.

Materials Required

  • MDF – Approx 18mm Thick
  • Plywood – 3mm or 5mm Ply (3mm Bends easier)
  • Small Tacks and Nails (For attaching Ply to the side of MDF)
  • Sanding Sheets
  • CNC Router or Jigsaw (Jigsaw for Hand cuts)
  • White Gloss Paint (Rollers/Brushes etc)
  • Fairy light fake bulbs (You can use the lights also)
  • OPTIONAL – Pixel Pusher
  • OPTIONAL – WS2801 RGB LED strings (If you want to control light)
  • OPTIONAL – 5v PSU and travel router to control RGB lights from phone)

Cutting the Letters

Draw up the letters in your favorite CAD/CAM program. I used Aspires Vetric for this. Mostly its a CAM software but still has some good tools for drawings. Another alternative would be to draw it in Adobe Illustrator and convert it to DXF. If you plan to cut the shapes manually, you will need to come up with a template. For smaller letters, this could be achieved in Microsoft word and printing the outlines. However for 1-meter tall lettering, your best off cutting on a CNC router.

Ensure the holes for the lighting are spaced evenly. I used a 150mm gap between each light, however, you can extend this to not use so many lights, or bring them closer together for more lighting.

Bending and Attaching the Ply

It is actually very surprising how flexible Ply is. Especially 3mm thick ply. Obviously the smaller your lettering the tighter the corners will be. You may even have to wet your ply with water to make that bend. However, with these letters, I did not have to wet any of them down. The tightest angle was on the inside of the heart shape and the 5mm ply that I used just made it. I could hear some slight cracks, but nothing visual.

The ply is measured and cut to length, I tried to make the seams join at the apex of the cuts. However, it does not matter too much where the ply joins as you can hide any irregularities prior to painting. Attach the ply with some overhang at the rear of the letters. This will help to hide any unsightly cabling/wiring later.

We used some black tacks to attach the plywood. Every few centimeters I tacked the ply on. This has held well to date. If you use nails, be careful not to split the MDF.

Painting (The Not so fun part!)

What I will say here is that you should really spend some time sanding. As with all wood projects, any imperfections will be seen if you do not deal with them now. However, knowing that these things are always turned in a dimly lit room may entice you to do a half job here. Also, you may want to punch the tacks down below the surface of the wood and use some filler to cover it over. Ok so get painting! we used a gloss, feel free to change it up here.

OPTIONAL – The Electronics

This section is totally optional. I initially used the ‘Christmas’ like lights in the bulbs but found it to be boring. Thus I took it a bit further and installed the WS2801 RGB LED string lights. I acquired these from Aliexpress at a good price. I also used one of the many Pixelpushers I had lying about to drive the RGBs. Using the Pixelpusher for this kind of install is massively overkill however its what I had lying around. The bonus to this is that I could use the LEDlab App and control the lights from my phone. Let me know if you want more info on this setup.