lithophane
yup you read right it took me three times to say it right.
that is what it is called when you take a pic and carve it into a clear or translucent plastic of some sort.
have a look at one I did last night
this is the first I have tried it is on 1/4 plexiglass clear witht he carving set at .100 depth and height at 75
the names and date are too deep at .063 so the next one will be around .02 just to try a difference I think it will show up very nice at that depth.
in the middle right over my face you will see discoloring and this was due to a burr on the bit as it turns out and instead of carving away it was scraping away. (I think)
my intention is to make a shadow box and perhaps have a back light. I am also going to carve the same pic in white lexan to see the difference.
when I looked at the other people who have done lithophanes I have seen almos black and white but with the clear it all frosted. I don't mind this look but It would be nice to see the difference in that as well.
I did absolutely nothing to the image except flip it horz so that it would carve on the back and the fromt would be smooth.
I had trouble getting the cw to measure this because it was either clear or too thin so I set it on a piece of pine at the end and let it go.
to keep it attached to the pine I used two small strips of rubber approx 1/8 thick to stop it from slidding around. no glue or anything else asside from the rollers.
let me know what ytou think of the idea and the pic.
don't worry about my feelings my buddy told me today that I was a skunk because of how it looked.
I know there is no point in reinventing the wheel, but reinventing myself is a worthy goal to be sure.
Tim