In this article, you will find the instructions to make your own opaque acrylic blocks with holes for light to pass through. With that, you can make thousands of crafts: lamps, window decorations, and a thousand original ideas that you can think of that involve playing with light and shadows.
MATERIALS NEEDED:
– Silicone mold
– Nails
– Liquid acrylic cement
– Polisher
INSTRUCTIONS:
Step 1. Prepare the molds
In order to make your own colored acrylic cement blocks, you will need to prepare some functional molds for your purpose.
In rectangular plastic trays, place the silicone molds in the bottom. When they are in place, nail the nails in the pattern that interests you the most: you can do it randomly or by creating drawings with them. Think that, once the result is finished, the place where the nails are now will be the place where the holes are in the final work, and where the light will pass through.
Step 2. Pour the acrylic cement
Pour the acrylic cement into the molds, making sure there are no bubbles inside, that it correctly occupies all the vertices of the mold and that it fits well around the nails. Once you have the mold filled to the top, make sure that the material is well distributed and does not protrude over the top.
Step 3. Let dry and remove the mold
Let the material dry until you are sure it is dry even in the center. When it’s ready, you can turn the tray over and remove the silicone mold from the back of the block. Now you can remove the nails from the acrylic cement block.
Step 4. Polish it
Use a polisher to clean all the impurities. Think that the area near the nails will have been irregular, as well as the ends of the rectangular block. Make sure that no irregularities can hurt you and leave it perfectly smooth.
Once finished, you can use your new translucent block for whatever you want: use it as a lampshade, create paintings with light and frame them with strips of LEDs behind the holes to create brilliant landscapes, or invent a thousand and one original ways to use this new element!
