One of the great things about the holidays is seeing all the cool gifts Makers create for their loved ones. Mike Becker created this eye-catching illuminated wall art for his father-in-law. This project worked for him because it wasn’t very expensive, but still looks very cool.
Becker used a free rasterbator program to turn a photo of a stag into a gridded design of dots, which he then transferred to MDF. It took him two days to drill out all the holes in the pattern. Once that was done, he added a frame and some cheap LED strip lighting to illuminate the image.
There is no “hardest part” to this project according to Becker, but “tedious, mind numbing, and time consuming” are some words that come to mind after the process of measuring and placing each individual dot with a ruler to the nearest 0.5mm. Comments on the project already include some thoughts on how to automate, or at least ease this part of process, by using a CNC machine. Part of the charm of this project, however, is how commonplace the tools are.
“[This project] requires minimal tools (drill, skill saw, glue, and a ruler), minimal know-how, and it’s relatively inexpensive for raw materials.” Becker says, all qualities that make this a good entry-level project for beginners. And you certainly can’t complain about his amazing results, either.
[via Reddit]
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