Neon-sign Shop Forges Ahead In An Led World

[Erik Sine]

Neon-sign shop forges ahead in an LED world

Daniels Wholesale Sign & Plastics recently moved into a new $2 million,30,000-square-foot facility in DeLand.

Bob Peterson bends neon tubes, which will be used in signs, at Daniels Wholesale Sign & Plastics facility in DeLand.

Bob Peterson has been a tube bender for 17 years, burning straight sticks of glass over hot flame to form neon signs.

"It's difficult to learn," Peterson said recently as he surveyed a counter laid out with tubes shaped into the letters of a Subway sub shop sign. "It takes a good year to be bad at it."

It's also a segment of the sign business that for years has taken a beating from newer, LED technologies, said Peterson's boss, Dan Singer, who owns Daniels Wholesale Sign & Plastics in DeLand.

But Singer isn't writing off neon. Instead, he is investing in the old-fashioned technology as a small part of an ambitious growth plan.

Singer, who hopes to double his manufacturing staff of 25 by the end of this year, recently moved his 24-year-old sign-making operation into a $2 million factory.

P's and y's that will be used in neon signs for Papaya Clothing lie on the floor at Daniels Wholesale Sign & Plastic in DeLand.

The new, 30,000-square-foot facility has a state-of-the-art painting booth, two new plastic-molding ovens -- including an 11-by-211/2-footer, one of the nation's biggest, Singer said -- and enough room in the black-walled neon-production area to start a school for neon technicians.

Singer hopes to start neon classes by the end of the year to teach what he says is a dying art.

But the plans for growth don't stop there. Daniels hopes to grow all aspects of its business, which includes formed plastic sign faces -- the company's specialty -- as well as channel letters, routered signs and sign cabinets like the ones you see on poles outside strip shopping centers.

If production takes off as Singer expects, the factory at 1856 Patterson Ave. is designed to easily expand by another 25,000 square feet.

Erin Sowers marks locations for supports for the neon tubing that will go on a Ben & Jerry's sign at Daniels Wholesale Sign & Plastics facility in DeLand.

Meanwhile, Singer is also building a 25,000-square-foot materials-storage facility across the street.

Singer, 47, thinks his new plant's efficient design and higher production capacity will kick-start the company's growth.

But he admits that his heady plans for Daniels are exhilarating to the point of being a little scary.

"It's like building a house; you know how they say, 'Will your marriage survive?' " he said. "Multiply that by 100."

Singer, who has worked in sign manufacturing for 30 years, says the industry is highly cyclical, growing and shrinking in five- to 10-year phases.

Sign painter Mike "Pops" Nunnery, 57, can attest to the industry's ups and downs. He has spent more than 30 years working in sign shops, the last 11 at Daniels.

Owner Daniel Singer poses behind a rack of neon letters at Daniels

"I go to a company and I don't ever leave them. They leave me. They go out of business or go bankrupt," he said.

Daniels actually acquired some of its equipment -- as well as Peterson, the neon technician -- when a 120-employee Tampa sign shop went under three years ago.

But Singer is confident the industry is on the upswing.

Mike Boyd, president of the Florida Sign Association and owner of Signs & Things in Naples, said sign manufacturers across Florida are growing.

Two years of active hurricane seasons have been good for business, along with the continuing population growth that is Florida's hallmark.

"Everybody seems to be pretty busy," Boyd said.

Singer, who makes signs for businesses from the Keys to Jacksonville, also is counting on the global economy to keep his shop humming. Daniels also ships its signs across the U.S. and to countries including China, Japan, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

Most of Daniels' business is in plastic, and the company specializes in "formed sign faces." High-impact, modified acrylic is rolled in sheets off giant spools and fed into the ovens, where it is vacuum pressed over custom-made wooden molds.

Less than 20 percent of Daniels' business is in neon, but Singer said the electrically charged gas signs are enjoying a resurgence.

Many small neon shops went out of business when signs made with LEDs -- short for "light-emitting diodes" -- hit the market about eight years ago, Singer said. That has created a niche he hopes to fill.

Boyd, who has one tube bender on staff at his 22-person shop in Naples, said he thinks there always will be a market for neon -- if only a small one.

"It's actually an art," he said. "I don't think it will ever go away because it is so unique."

Luis Medina paints sign letters in the painting booth