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Arts, Audio-Video Technology and Communications

Sign Maker

Real-Life Activities

Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution

You try to figure out a way to do the impossible.

If you are sign maker Curtis McLean, this is ultimately what you do. But first he told the customer that no one had ever done it before.

"'We can't do it.' It was the first thing we said to him but he was adamant."

The customer insisted that he wanted that tiny customized license plate in neon: he had a dream that he wanted made real. So McLean kept thinking about the problem, trying to figure out if there was a way to do it.

One month later, he had an idea. He tried it, and it worked -- but it was tough going. "It took 14 hours to bend the whole thing."

The end result is a neon Dodge Viper roughly three-feet high by seven-feet long that hangs on the inside wall of the customer's garage. Instead of the light that normally comes on when the garage door opens, the neon sign turns on and lights up the whole garage with its color. And the customized license plate? The client's name is spelled out in neon on the smallest piece of neon ever made. While the car fills the wall, the license plate itself is only one-inch high and four inches in length.