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Tutorial: Building a Light Table

A light table is very handy for drawing cross sections of individual brick layers based on a front and side view. You have probably seen me mention this in the Tutorial: Sculptures When building a sculpture, it is important to see the outer edge of the underlying brick layer, thus it should be transferred to each new sheet of paper depicting a new layer. The easiest way to accomplish this is to put a new sheet of paper on top of the existing one and trace the outer edge. If standard paper with 80g/m2 is used, the underlying paper will not shine through, thus a light table is very useful.

Material needed:

I used an old childrens table, since the low overall height combined with the mounting for the lights will make it just as tall as a regular desk.

In the beginning, the plexiglass needs to be cut to fit the edges of the table. Additionally, the underside of the glass is sanded with an orbital sander. This will cause a much smoother distribution of the light once the table is lit. Afterwards, the neon tubes are mounted. A hole drilled into the table top provides a pathway for electric cables. Now a wooden frame made from leftovers is constructed around the edge of the table, also a wooden bar with the same height is placed into the center. The latter will prevent the plexiglass from bending. Finally, the glass is mounted with screws and your light table is ready to be used.

Last modified on 2009/11/29 - Copyright 2000-2021 - Tobias Reichling

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