Lithophane Christmas

[Raymond Chapman]

I'll post this in the sign section since that is what I do for a living.

This is a lithophane I did of our grandchildren as a Christmas present for my wife, Jeanne.

Overall size is 9" x 14". Face is 3/16" acrylic.

It was designed with ArtCam Pro and produced on my ShopBot PRTalpha.

[Phil O'Rourke]

Very nice Ray. Good looking kids too.

[Gary Campbell]

Raymond...
Nice! I think there is some woodworker in there along with the signmaker.
Gary

[Phil O'Rourke]

Looks like you come up with a light source that works very well.

[Raymond Chapman]

Phil - the light is a 13" florescent unit normally used for under counter kitchens(from Home Depot). I replaced the rocker switch with a lamp cord that has a switch in-line.

It gives a softer light without having a bright spot, plus it doesn't build up as much heat. There are some holes in the back to allow for ventilation.

[Donald G Clifton]

Have you thought of using white LED's. This could be mounted between the face and clock movement and produce 0 heat.
Thanks
Don Clifton

[Chuck Gallup]

Raymond, is the lithopane three pictures (Of the stunningly attractive kids) combined into one or is this one photograph?

From the time you pushed start....how long did the carving process take?

[Raymond Chapman]

Chuck - I took three photographs and combined them into one using Photoshop. While there I cropped them down and adjusted the contrast, and converted them to gray scale.

And I agree, they are very attractive kids...but then I'm prejudice. The young lady is our first grandchild and just turned 18 yesterday. The boys are both 13.

LED's would probably work well too, but I was on a limited budget and having to use what I could find around the studio and locally. The light was actually bought with a Gift Card that I had received earlier.

The process took about 90 minutes.

[jack jarvis]

hey Raymond you should do a search for and use "cold cathode lights". They emit almost no perceptible heat, are rated to run continuously for 30,000 hours and are cheap. A pair of 12" lights are around $8.00 and a wall wart plugin less then $10.00.
They give you a nice even glow across the whole length without any hotspots and you never have to worry about any heat buildup.
Cold cathode lights are the same kind of lights the grocery stores use in their refrigerated boxes like where the milk is displayed, next time you are at the store check them out only the ones you buy are WAY smaller. Here is one link for future reference:
http://www.xoxide.com/dual-white-cold-cathode-kit.html

[Jerry Stanek]

Jack what if your litho is a standard 8 X 10 picture? The nice thing about led lights are they are cheap last up to 100,000 hrs no heat and you can run them off a 12 volt battery if power is not available.