I said I’d try another Acrylic sign with Laser Foil. The original was OK, but had some issues. The new one is the Rebel shield with the seal of the Jedi at the bottom. Here’s a link to my original foil try if you haven’t seen it already.
This wouldn’t rate an A+ from the teacher, but I think I’ve earned a Most Improved star for application of the Laser Foil. Here it are the components in the bed of the Glowforge.
It’s tough to see in the photo, but there are a few ripples in the foil (this is still a huge improvement over the last one - its HUGE). I guess that I was still a little impatient when placing and squeegeeing the wetting solution out. For this one I removed the mask from the Proofgrade Acrylic and replaced it with the foil. To help avoid bubbles, I used a wetting solution - I used a vinyl application fluid called Rapitac that is used for vinyl decals. I understand that this homemade brew also works:
For 1 quart -
4 drops dishsoap (less is better than more)
1/2 cup isopropal alcohol
3 1/2 cups water
Spray it on liberally and place the adhesive material, then squeegee out the liquid starting at the middle. You can find lots of tutorials on You Tube.
Here is the unlit sign:
Here’s a few shots of it lit up with a cheap color changing LED base.
I like how the foil adds daytime interest to the fixture without hindering the glow when lit. I’ll still do them without the Laser Foil, but this is another option.
Here’s one I made for a friend’s son that has no Foil. The Bat emblem and name were just deep scores. I did a thick engrave around the outside. If I had just done the score and outside cut, it would been done in just a few minutes. Deep scoring shows up really well and saves a ton of time over doing engraves. An engrave does add some interest though. I’ll probably use in moderation for future signs.
PS - They had this deluxe base and it came with a backhoe and dump truck LightBoard. I used the felt trick to get the medium acrylic to fit snugly in this base also. The kids will probably get a replacement LightBoard to trade out for every holiday going forward. Very fun and inexpensive gift item. Maybe I’ll even make a box that they can keep them in.
What a great idea to make a gift that you can keep adding to! And a box to store them in!
Great tip on applying the foil- you definitely get Most Improved!
AliExpress. I’m pretty sure this is where I got them. Just a few notes on them. they are battery only 3 AAA. No timer. The worst thing is that they ship in random colors. When I ordered last time, I got 5, 4 were flashing Red/Green/Blue and one was solid blue. I’d have liked to have the option of picking colors. Not a big fan of the RGB alternating. Since bulbs aren’t on at all times, it is not quite as bright. Don’t count on using the acrylic it comes with. It is 2 layers of some sort of polycarbonate that doesn’t engrave really well. I don’t know what I’ll use it for. Here’s a link to a topic where I used it. It’s post 14 in the thread. I didn’t know how to get directly to that post - If I quoted just that post, the photos didn’t seem to show up.
They are supposedly on sale for another 15 hours (might almost always be on sale?). $7.32 each including shipping. It looks like they are about $10 if not on “sale”. I guess they weren’t that cheap when I got them, unless I snagged them before a pretty big price increase.
Funny you would ask that, as this very moment I just received an advert. email from the place where I bought the same ones. I originally called them my ‘coming-round-the-horn’ order, since I figured they would take forever to get here, but actually they arrived in fairly good time. These are certainly less money, but for good reason…they only do RGB looping colors…and you have no other options. They come with two pieces of either polycarbonate or extruded acrylic, sandwiched for things like restaurant menus, etc. I tried engraving one of those, but it came out pretty poorly. I think they’re a great ‘test’ base…just to see how something might look…or might be fun for gifting with a sign. They are strictly battery operated. That being said, here’s a link;
This is gorgeous. I’m thinking I need to do a Serenity in silver foil for my Firefly room. 
