Building your own lightbox?

[Brad Mulock]

Hello Jay,

We build ours. We buy all the required materials from Amari.

Would recommend doing it yourself to save a few quid but it can be quite time consuming.

Make sure all the mitered corners are cut exactly at 45 degrees and the is plenty of internal support bars all with top and bottom bracing to stop the top or bottom sagging.

You need to consider where the gear trays are going to be located and make sure you have a fix point for the lamp holders within the range of the gear tray or you’ll end up fixing the lamp holders to the backing sheet. Not such a major problem when using di-bond but it will mean that the bulb rests on the uprights supports instead of above them.

Pieces of aluminum angle in the corners for support and loads of rivets holding the whole thing together and you should be ok.

Final tip. Make sure the beading is set to the right width for the panel you are going to be using. i.e 5mm panel needs a bigger gap than a 3mm panel. Make the gap to big and when you come to hang the panel the hanging strips will simply fall down off the rail.

Good luck..

[George Elsmore]

Jason saying you are trying to keep costs down on this job is admirable but by the time you have designed and built this lightbox the labour costs will be more than buying one ready made especially at the size you mentioned.

just a thought 😀

G

[Jason Adams]

Hmmm…you may have a point. Thanks….Do you know anyone thats good?

[George Elsmore]

http://www.kestrelsigns.com/

these are reasonable call for a quote you will be surprised

G

[Nicola McIntosh]

if you have a work bench cut a square hole in it, lay in a piece of clear material you have lying around, buy a striplight and hey presto you have a light box….oh and apply etch to the clear material…so you dont have a bright light shining in your face, it will save you money and looks nice built into the bench 😀

nik