Menards billboards.

It’s really a lightbox, so almost any decent quality paper that is thin enough to let light through should give you good results. (just good quality, ordinary white copy paper run through a color printer). See how it goes and what you come up with.

I Hope this helps you. Have fun!

We’d like to see everyone’s custom billboard signs! I’m working on the next set of billboards and I could use some help! Please post photos below.

Thank you, Mark the Menards Train Guy

I'm thinking of using Viewgraph transparency film.  Years ago I used this film to print color PowerPoint slides on my inkjet printer.  The film is available in 8 1/2 x 11 format. 

Hmmmmmmmm, Very Interesting.... hitting PRINT, Photos at eleven

I’d recommend a slightly thicker paper or try not leaving the background white. Below even the OGR billboard has some blueish background added. Otherwise the lighting over saturated the sign.  BTW I cut mine slightly bigger hopping I could wedge it in but in the end used a little reusable glue "boogers" to hold it.  It would be cool if they could make a frame that would allow a sign to be slid in and retained.

Has anyone ever tried to make a custom Buc-ee's sign for the billboard? Like the one in the attached picture?

Off topic: when these first came out, i attached channels to the frame. I then applied the signs to clear plexiglass. This way you can easily replace the signs.

I've made custom signs printed on high quality typing paper.  The Illinois Railway Museum photo is my photo; the others are from the internet but edited and modified.  The Standard Oil billboard is too narrow for a Menards billboard so it was padded out with white space on the left and right sides.

This post got me to wondering about billboards in general.  They have an very interesting history, poke around on the internet and you will find how and why they came about, and why they are still here today.  I was trying  to find the first instance of a billboard that may have been internally lit instead of the normal series of flood lamps pointed at the front on extended arms, or the long row of lamps along the bottom.  No luck on a backlit transparent advertisement.  Where I grew up, one of the big car dealerships had a billboard size sign totally enclosed with a glass front that was deep enough he could put the actual latest models of cars in, and it was fully lit internally so perhaps that would qualify.  The Menard's bill board is more representative of the latest structural steel support designs and electronic screen technology.   Would look right with the Acela, but no so much with the Rock Island in the 1940's.   But for us with a wig wag signal twice as high as the locomotive, they are about perfect.