My Name In Lights

I really enjoy making things out of wood but I don't often get a chance or have a reason but after watching some videos from the amazing Jimmy Diresta I decided to spend an afternoon making a light based on something he previously made.

The key part of it was the stencil for the light to shine through, rather than using a band saw or jigsaw to cut this out I made use of the laser cutter at Build Brighton. I had previously altered my AG logo to make the two letters touch slightly, I also retained the center of the A after cutting the letters out.

The stencyl was then attached to a plywood surround and white acrylic glued to the sides. Rather than trying to cut each side perfectly I glued an oversized piece to each side and then used a router to cut it down, the router follows the contour of the wood below ensuring the acrylic fits perfectly, I then repeated this 5 more times. When this was done I glued the center of the A straight onto the acrylic.

I used some general purpose glue to fix the acrylic, this worked but took about 20 minutes to dry dragging out the process quite a lot. I now have some 3M Super 90 spray which from a quick test will stick acrylic to wood in seconds!

The back is held on with magnets recessed and glued into the wood, its not a huge holding force but is enough to keep everything in place. Finally I used some white led sign lights that I picked up in China earlier in the year, these provide enough illumination to pass through the relatively thick white acrylic.

This was a quick build but turned out almost perfect, the letters blur slightly but I believe this is due to the thickness of the white acrylic and the stencyl behind.

The full photo set is available on Google+