Lithophane Christmas

[joewino]

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.


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[phil_o]

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]

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

[joewino]

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.

[donclifton]

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

[navigator7]

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?

[joewino]

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.

[myxpykalix]

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.

[navigator7]

Is there a size limit to lithos?
Transparency of the carved piece and a suitable light source, I suppose?
Depth of cut exceeds the material available?

[joewino]

I wouldn't think that there would be any size restrictions - getting even light across a large litho would seem to be the biggest problem.

Of course, the depth of cut cannot exceed the thickness of the material or you have a hole in your picture.

Thanks for the link Jack. Do these just plug in or do you have to adapt them in some way? Could they run off a battery also?

[billp]

The only limitation is how large a sheet of material you can fit on to your table...Here's one that Bob Dodd ( on left) did a few years ago. It's not even his largest which was close to 11 feet long...(and may be posted somewhere in the archives of the Forum if you do a Google search)
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[myxpykalix]

Raymond the cold cathode lights i use take a wall wart plugin and if you email me i can send you a wiring tutorial that someone else created (i'd like to credit him if i knew).

Jerry talks about leds and i see them being adapted for use in many things so he may be on to something there, i just have never used them and like the solid even glow of cold cathode.