Acrylic inlay

Made on a Glowforge
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Hey everyone! Here’s something I did today and it turned out so well, I had to share. I have a bunch of those led light bases, so I thought I would see if I could do an acrylic inlay. Here’s the result and it is so cool. Here’s what it looks like off the base (not impressive at all) :

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That is fluorescent yellow and some kind of lilac color acrylic I had leftover (both transparent, which I think is important for this). Here’s what it looks like on the base

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The color sort of climbs up the edges of the different acrylic pieces as it changes. Really cool!

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That is impressive looking. Fitting acrylic pieces together is difficult to do and make look good. Your’s looks great. :grinning:

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Thanks! It was a beast to get to fit for sure! I broke a few pieces along the way :grin:

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Wow - really beautiful - well worth the effort!

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That’s an awesome effect!

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:sunglasses: :+1:

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The first 2 I was like “meh” and then I was like “woah” for the rest. Now I want to try

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Nice Job! I think you found something really new! Great inspiration making!

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I love it! And I’m impressed by your acrylic gluing skills. I always seem to make a mess.

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I think the colors make it look good when not lit as well. This is the first time I’ve seen a piece designed to be lit by LED that used inlay. That’s a very interesting technique.

Did you use weld-on adhesive?

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No, I used Loctite super glue. I was going to use weld-on but I didn’t think it would work since some of the triangles have small gaps here and there that I thought were too big for weld-on. So I just spread the glue on the back while it was still masked kind of smooshed it into the cracks. Let it dry for a bit and then took masking off. I am wondering if the fluorescent yellow has anything to do with how it changes colors. I was just going through my scraps looking for transparent acrylic and that’s what I had. Lucky, I guess!

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I’d love to see what you do! I can’t stop looking at mine, it’s kind of hypnotic :slight_smile:

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Wow, that turned out really nice.

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Very cool. Added to my list of things to try.

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Holy carp! This is freaking awesome! Great job!

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Thanks everyone! So, I got the idea when I was wondering if I could do something like my mom’s hummingbird (Acrylic and walnut hummingbird) using clear acrylic as the frame instead of wood so that it could go on an LED base. Then I realized that some of what I used for that wasn’t really suited for this since the LED light wouldn’t shine up through it. I’m guessing that was the more opaque colors I used. And also the color changing might look weird on something that’s not really abstract. So I had already done a notebook cover with the compass and thought that might work. Now I am wondering what other colors of the acrylic would do. I liked that one so much I made a bigger version with the same colors since those are the only ones I had. I am looking forward to trying it again!

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What a beautiful turnout!

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Honestly, I feel like I’m forever way from even becoming close to trying this. I haven’t even tried inlays yet

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I just remembered something that has helped me when fitting tight pieces together. Turn the piece that feels too tight over and often it will fit. :grin:

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Yes, that works when it can be done. I think for this one I actually rearranged some of them as well. Initially I was trying to put the exact triangle in the exact spot because I wasn’t confident they were all the same size. So when things were getting tight, I started rearranging them and somehow got it to work. Now my husband wants me to make two more, ooops. Guess it’ll be more trial and error along the way. :slight_smile:

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