CharleyL

Are you sure? A human hair is about 0.0035 inches". Most aluminum foil is about 0.005 inches". Go here for an inch to millimeter chart .http://www.hotwatt.com/inchto.htm 0005mm is incredibly small, much smaller than a human hair. Are you certain that you need something that small? It will almost be transparent. Charley

If you print your patterns on paper with a laser printer or Xerox type photo copier, the toner (ink) is really a high temperature wax. You can print a reversed image on paper, use tape to attach one edge of it it face down to your board, and then heat the pattern with a clothes iron to melt the toner and transfer the image to the wood. By taping only one edge of the pattern, you can lift it frequently without loosing the alignment to check and see if you missed any spots. Mineral spirits removes the toner from the wood very well after the pattern has been cut out. I've been told that Wintergreen oil can be used instead of the iron for a "no heat" method of transferring the pattern, but I haven't tried this. My iron is a folding compact travel iron that I picked up at a flea market and use it only for this purpose.. For my compound cutting (most of what I do now), I print the patterns on paper with the laser printer and then use stationery store type rubber cement to attach the pattern directly to the wood. This works well for compound cutting, because all of the pattern comes off with the scrap wood, so there is never a need to remove any of it with solvents. I do get an occasional lift off if I haven't used enough rubber cement or if I have glued the pattern to the wood and then not cut it for months after attaching the pattern. For very intricate 2D cutting I frequently use Applique Film, which in many ways seems to be the ideal choice for scroll sawing and carving patterns, except for it's cost.. It is a clear slightly frosted Mylar 8 1/2 X 11" sheet that comes with a peel and stick backer. It prints well in a laser printer, and the sticky backside allows it to be peeled off and re-attached to clean wood several times without loosing it's stickiness, which is great when trying to align several small patterns to each other.. For small patterns I use Photoshop to put as many copies of the pattern as will fit on one sheet, to minimize waste. Almost nothing of the glue remains on the wood when this film is peeled off, but I always wipe the finished work with mineral spirits to be sure there is no glue left. I have never had a pattern lift off during cutting that was made on this material.. Unfortunately, it costs about $1.00 per sheet, so it isn't the best choice for everything. I do relief carving as well as scroll sawing and found this material to be ideal for making the relief carving patterns. It is "Chartpak DAFR8 Applique Film" and it is available through stationery and art supply stores, although most do not keep it in stock, and will order it for you. It's also available on the internet through many sources.. Charley

There are bearing specialty stores in most large cities in the USA, and you will find their prices much lower than DeWalt or the tool parts suppliers like www.ereplacementparts.com. The bearings that they have in stock are the same or better bearings than you can get from the tool manufacturers too, but you will be buying them from a wholesale distributor and not second or third hand retail. If the part number etched on the side of the bearing is the same, it is the same bearing, no matter where you buy it. Charley

That is very impressive, especially for a first try at it. If I remember correctly, those double image patterns require 1 3/4 square blocks of wood. It's been a while since I cut any of them. I tend to prefer making compound cut patterns that produce the front and side views of just one animal, chess piece, etc. Since you are just beginning to compound cut, my only suggestion is to try many different kinds of compound cut patterns. More like your first one, and then others. I don't know where you got the pattern for this first project, but it is in a book called "128 Compound Scroll Saw Patterns" by Sam Keener. I've also enjoyed cutting compound cut patterns from any of the books written by Diana Thompson. Her book "3-D Patterns for the Scroll Saw" has a bunch of characters that look like she was inspired by Dr Zeuss children's books and all that I've tried from this book have been fun. Quite challenging is the rural mailbox on the stand with vines around the stand that's in this book. She has another book full of Compound Cut Christmas Ornaments that I have very much enjoyed cutting, but this book is out in my shop right now, so I can't give you the exact name of it. Any books by Diana Thompson are great and she has published about 5 of them. I'm less impressed with the book bout 3D Scroll Saw patterns by Frank Pozzgai. Several patterns in this book were apparently never cut out before publishing them because the face and side views don't cut properly and the end result is not good. A cat with ears in the side view but not in the face view is one of them. Since cutting out my first compound cut patterns about 25 years ago I rarely cut any 2 D patterns since. They just don't offer the interest and challenge for me. For the past 9 years I've been cutting out 3-D Reindeer, now in 4 sizes, from a pattern that's on Mathias Wandel's website www.woodgears.ca. Wach year I have made more of them than the previous year and I give them away during the Christmas Season from Thanksgiving to New Years, to any woman (most men don't appreciate them) who in some way helps or does something for me. Any woman waitress, sales clerk, cashier, nurse, doctor, etc. .who waits on me, helps me choose a gift, takes care of my health needs, etc. is offered one. I usually hold one in the palm of my hand with my palm down, so it can't be seen and at the end of our transaction I hold my hand out toward them and wish them ""A Very Merry Christmas". When they reach out toward me I drop the reindeer into their hand. I'm always thanked, sometimes hugged, and occasionally kissed on the cheek, which is significant in improving my "Christmas Spirit" and theirs as well. Last year I made and gave away 428 of these little reindeer. The largest approx 3" tall are the easiest to cut and I'm down to about 6 minutes a piece for them. The two middle size usually get a jewelry pin glued to one side of their body. The smallest (about 1" tall) get a hole drilled through their heads just under their antlers and I add a gold or silver ring through this hole and the top end of the ring gets an ear ring hook attached. I make these in pairs, place teach pair in small jewelry boxes, and give them to special women friends. My doctor is one of these "special friends". All together since starting this reindeer project I have cut out well over 2500 of these little reindeer. Now, if you go to any restaurant that I frequent near where I live, you can find tiny herds of them in a high place, usually near the checkout desk. Charley

There is a plastic material called "Starboard" that was originally developed for the marine industry.Do a Google search for it to find the sources It comes in many colors and is colorfast in Sunlight. It is also the same color all the way through it and it comes in standard sheet stock thicknesses and 4' X 9' sizes There is a special glue for it, because most glues won't adhere to it. You can cut and shape this material with regular woodworking power tools. This material is the best, easily workable, material that I know of for making outdoor signs and other products that need to last a really long time, but it isn't cheap, so it may not be worth using it for this job. I sometimes do work for the NC Science Museums, and they have gone away from using birch cabinet plywood with HP Laminate covering to using Starboard for most of the exhibit cabinet building, because it is so much more resistant to scratching, chipping, and graffiti. Cabinet assembly is usually done with hidden pocket screws, but sometimes it is also glued together. On a side note - scraps of Starboard make great cutting boards for the kitchen, I think even better that HDPE, and with color choices.. If wood is the only option, use cedar, or white oak and design the sign so that all of the top surfaces are not flat, but slightly slopped so that rain will not collect on these surfaces and keep all of the wood well sealed with exterior paint, caulking, or epoxy, or if the wood grain needs to show, covered with several coats of a good top quality Marine Spar Varnish, and add new coats of finish every few years. The railings and spars of old sailing ships were preserved with frequent coats of boiled linseed oil. This works well, but smells bad for days after application, dries slowly, and needs to be re-coated frequently. For safety when using linseed or other drying oils, all of the application tools, brushes, and rags should be put outside of your shop or residence in a pail of water very soon after use to avoid spontaneous combustion. Linseed Oil, tung oil and other drying oils react with Oxygen in the air as they dry, but Boiled Linseed Oil is seemingly much more dangerous than these other drying oils, and can burst into flames on it's own when it cannot give off this generated heat freely. This can happen quickly under the right conditions. A bunched up Linseed Oil soaked rag laying on your workbench can become too hot to touch in less than an hour. The safest way to avoid these problems is to remove the materials from the building soon after use. I used to have a chain link fence that I would hang my oil soaked rags and brushes from while they dried to afford free air circulation around them and remove the heat. but I no longer have one near my present shop. The pail of water is way safer anyway, but make certain that they remain below the surface of the water. The day following their use I remove them from the water and throw them into the trash.. Charley

While your saw appears to still be in warranty, take it to DeWalt for service. If I had to guess at what your problem is, I would say that the speed control board it bad, but it could also be a bad motor or something else. All are expensive, so let DeWalt fix it for free, if you can. The speed control board is about $70 and the motor about $250 if you have to buy them yourself. Don't wait until it's too late and the warranty expires. Charley

Taking one of these saws entirely apart IS NOT a good way for an inexperienced person to go about rebuilding one of these saws, but I'm glad to see that it seems to have worked out OK for you. I have always recommended only taking one sub-assembly apart at a time, checking and/or replacing the bearings and re-lubricating them, before moving on to the next sub-assembly. Doing it this way keeps the removed parts together better and your memory clearer about where everything came from, so you get it back together correctly. Charley

There is a craft product called "Fun Tac" It's just a sticky version of modeling clay. It can be used under vases to keep them from moving, or behind the bottom edge of pictures to do the same and it doesn't dry out. It can also be removed fairly easily.. Stick a blob of Fun Tac to a convenient, but out of the way part of your scroll saw and stick the ends of your partially used blades into it. I think my mom bought it by the pound, because everything in her house was stuck in place with it. She had a cat that couldn't leave anything where my mom had put it. The Fun Tac seemed to solve the problem with the cat rearranging the house, knocking things to the floor, etc. Charley.

Here is a sketch photo of the oceanographic submarine that I did the electrical controls and some of the assembly work for. I tried to post it in my previous post, but the site or the internet was having problems and wouldn't accept it. Today everything worked fine. Charley

Thanks Jerry. Have you told Cherry Tree about this problem? I would think that they would want to know about problems with their patterns and fix them. Maybe send them a photo copy of tour changes, so they get it right. Charley

So when are you going to fix your collection of Dewalt saws, Kevin? Charley

There are actually 4 of these museums in the Charlotte area. Discovery Place is on Tryon St. right in the middle of downtown Charlotte. The Nature Museum is just SE of downtown, then there is a Discovery Place Kids museum in Cornelius, which is about 10 miles North of Charlotte on an exit off I-77 and another one now in Rockingham which is East of Charlotte about 20 miles. All of these are managed by the main Discovery Place in downtown Charlotte. The main Discovery place has exhibits for adults as well as kids. The others are more geared to young children 4-12 years old, but are still quite interesting for adults to see, but we are too big to participate in much of it. One of the large exhibit halls of Discovery Place holds traveling exhibits that move every few months to other museums around the country, Several years ago they had the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit where actual pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls was on display. Another was about movie making. It had about a dozen movie sets and members of the group touring got to play characters in the movie, which was video recorded. At the end of this tour the short movie there was a showing room where they got to see the movie that they just made and everyone was given a DVD copy of the movie for them to take home. My Daughter-In-Law and Grand Daughter went through this and I have a copy of the movie that they are in. Another great traveling exhibit was about the human body. It had displays of many body parts with explanations of each and included some actual whole bodies with the skin and fat removed so you could see everything inside the body. These were all preserved somehow and encased in plastic. There is a whole room in the Nature Museum that I was quite involved in. It's called "Our Big Backyard" and this is the location of the Thunder storm that I created. There are also several other exhibits in there that I designed and built the controls for. The Nature Museum has an octagon shaped greenhouse attached where they have many plants and butterflies. Since butterflies don't live as butterflies very long, they are constantly hatching new batches of them. Wear a bright colored shirt in there and many will land on you. They also have live small animals in the room next to the greenhouse. A de-scented skunk, raccoon, ground hog, possum. crow, etc. live there. All of them have had some physical sort of problem that prevented them from being released back into the wild, so they are living their lives out entertaining the children. Discovery Place Kids in Cornelius has many small rooms or areas, with kind of a small town theme. There is a grocery store, bank, fire house (with a real fire truck), ambulance, farm (with a real tractor), a deli restaurant, theater, pet hospital , a brick factory with an overhead crane, an airport, grandma's attic, etc. Each is geared to children's size and allows hands-on participation. There's also a Grand National race car and a speed boat with picture murals on the wall behind them, so the parents can take pictures of the kids driving them that will look quite real. We're getting way off the subject of scroll sawing, so I don't think that I should continue this here and I'm going to end it. If you have any further questions on this subject,, please send me a PM. Charley

Don, The pattern for the cross came from Wildwood Designs. It's one of a group of cross patterns, but I can't tell you much more about it. It was too long ago. After I cut it out on the scroll saw I decided that it needed something else, so I got out my air powered dentist drill power carver and 1/16" diameter bits and carved back the vines and leaves lower than the face of the cross and then shaped both the vines and leaves. I then coated the whole cross with Tung oil and let it dry. After it had thoroughly dried and the smell had gone away I used an Antique Green Rub N Buff to coat the leaves, then buffed the leaves lightly by hand after they had dried to bring out the gold flecks in the Rub N Buff. This was 19 years ago and I have made 17 more of these same cross's since then, with two more presently about 1/2 finished in my shop. All but two of these cross's have been made from Mahogany. One was made from Red Oak and One from White Oak. The Oak ones were nothing but trouble during the scroll sawing as well as the carving, so after finishing them, I vowed to never make them from Oak again and I tend to shy away from Oak for any other projects since then. I developed a real hate for Oak while trying to finish them. They each took me about 2X the time of doing each of the rest to complete.. My family has consumed the rest of these crosses, with some of my long lost cousins even showing up to get them., but my wife has this first made one. One of the early made crosses was given to a very special minister friend who helped me mentally recover after a very traumatic health event in my life. He convinced me that I was going to live through it, and that I would be better than I had been before the incident occurred after I recovered from it,. We didn't even know each other before that brief encounter.. This all took place seventeen years ago. I made his cross even better than the others, by coating the whole face of the cross itself with Gold Rub N Buff., which, after rubbing it out, made the cross itself look almost like it was made from solid gold. The Rub N Buff had filled the grain of the Mahogany so it appeared to be as smooth as metal.. Yesterday and Friday I cut up a 70 ft tall 24" diameter pine tree by myself, loaded about 1/3 of the trunk pieces of it into my truck, took them to the dump, and unloaded all of them by myself. Then I came back to finish cutting the rest of the tree into manageable sizes.They, and the branches are now completely cut up and waiting for their trip to the dump on Tuesday. I'm 75 years old, have survived cancer twice, have metal knees, the result of a fire fighting accident in 1978, and I have had heart surgery 6 times. I'm actually afraid to slow down, because several of my friends did slow down after they retired and they didn't last very long. All were much younger than me, but I think I may have overdone it a bit this time. I'm tired today and taking it easy all day.. Charley

The Links to what? The Discovery Place link is in the top part of my last post, first line of second paragraph. They don't want me posting pictures of what I do for them, so I can't do that, but here is a photo of a concept drawing for an oceanographic submarine that I designed the electrical for. The submarine never goes under water, but the lighting effects in the room provide ripple shadows like you would see if under water in a clear lake with a bright Sun above. It's just a bunch of wavy shadows that move. (I had nothing to do with the room lighting). The sub is in one room of a satellite branch museum of the Discovery Place Museum. It's called Discovery Place Kids and is geared to children in the 3-8 year old range. The sub just sits on the floor and has a wide door in the tail end, so kids in wheelchairs can enter it. There are electrical panels on both sides of the sub walls, A bunch of pipe and valves on part of the left side wall, and across from it a kind of simulated sonar panel with lights, switches, and sonar ping and return sound effects. Behind the valves there are sounds of rushing water, bubbles, and gurgles. The front of the sub has a large dome window and there is a driver's console with handles, switches, and a go-kart steering wheel. Pushing one of the buttons changes the lighting ioutside the front of the sub to a black light as long as you hold the button in. Rocks and shells on the floor in front of the sub have been painted with paint that glows in the black light. The two propellers, one on each side of the door, are actually large muffin fans, and the levers on the driver's console operate them. They have screens over them to keep tiny fingers out. There are many switches and lights in this sub. Most switches don't actually do anything except turn on other lights, but the effect is good, and the kids have a great time imagining that they are under water. I would attach a concept drawing, but this website doesn't seem to be allowing me to do this right now. Charley

You can take your saw apart and look at the stamping in the side of the part to verify the electrical value, or measure the resistance between the two end terminals of the part when it is disconnected from the saw with an ohm meter (multimeter).. It was 2 years ago that I did this, so checking the value of the part is likely a good idea. My brain isn't what it used to be. The part will show the value, as well as the manufacturer's part number, etc. stamped on the side of it. The electrical value and the physical shape and size are the most important parameters. The length of the shaft and the need for a flat on the side of the shaft to fit the hole in the knob is also important, but you can use a hack saw and a file to fix that. Neither is critical, so visibly the same is good enough. The part that I got from Radio Shack ad a 4" long round shaft, and worked fine after I modified it. You just need to turn the shaft of the new part as well as the original part fully counter clockwise to see where the flat needs to be and then file the flat on the shaft of the new part to match the same position of the flat on the original part. If you don't get it right, the part will still work, but the number scale on the knob versus the speed of the saw will be different, but it will still work. There is a tiny connector in the wires, so you can unplug the original part to take it to the work bench to do the soldering and to compare with the new part for where to file the flat on the shaft.. Also, file the flat on the shaft before you cut the shaft to length. The extra shaft length will allow you to clamp it in your vise to do the filing. Don't try to clamp the body of the part in the vise. You will destroy it. Clamp the excess part of the shaft in the vise instead, and then cut it to length after you have filed the flat. Charley

Thanks Jerry Charley

It's been a long time since I did this, but I used the exact same method when I did and then cut the bevels on my table saw. I did this long before Scrollsaw Village even existed, so I never thought to post it here. I'm glad that you did, and It should help those who haven't tried to add bevels to stack cut patterns by marking the position of the bevel cut as you cut the pattern, then do the bevel cut after the stack has been separated. BTW, I have been asked by SWMBO to make a new sleigh for her by next Christmas and I like the pattern that you chose. Can you tell me where it came from? I'm going to have to make it much smaller because she wants it to go with the 9 (including Rudolf) compound cut 3" tall reindeer that I have already made for her. I had made a different, less ornate, sleigh when I made the reindeer, but she doesn't care for it. Charley

I made one cross from red oak and another from white oak. Both times I swore that I would not try to cut oak any more, but I do cut hard maple quite frequently with no problems, except for the short life of the blades. The oaks just seem to fight with the blade, causing difficulty in following the pattern as well as short blade life. I think I've learned my lesson now, and will avoid scroll sawing oak in the future. This one was made from Mahogany, but the same pattern as the ones that I made from red and white oak. Charley

You will need to experiment with textures and lighting. As far as where to locate the LEDs, I think you will get the best results lighting the edges of the plexi, so mount the LEDs to shine into the edge of the plexi. If you want the whole panel to light up evenly LEDs all the way around the piece to shine the light in from all 4 edges may be best. Again, you will need to experiment. If you want the whole surface to light up, frosting the surface by sand blasting will do it. A mirrored or bright white surface behind the plexi will brighten it. A random orbit sander on low speed with fine grit sand paper may work if you don't have access to a sand blaster. Again, experiment. I design and build exhibits for the NC Science Museums, mostly for the one closest to me in Charlotte, NC. www.discoveryplace.org. When building these exhibits I do everything needed except for the graphic arts work. They have whole departments to do that part. I do the cabinet making, hydraulics, pneumatics, mechanical, wiring, programming, etc. . Many of these exhibits involve researching materials and techniques, like you are doing, to find what works the best for the project. I frequently get involved in combining materials to produce the effect that they are looking for, much like you are doing. I've always enjoyed doing this part of the job and have learned a lot about the science of lighting effects and other things in the process of doing this research,. I'm a retired automation engineer (EE), so creating new machinery is something that I have done my whole working life. Mostly, I've done the control systems part, while others in my team did the rest. The actual work part of this was always fun and an interesting challenge for me, so doing it for the Science Museums gives me some more challenges and fun now that I'm fully retired (I have now retired 5 times, but new offers and higher pay have kept pulling me back to work - I do the museum work for free as a volunteer and get reimbursed for materials and mileage. Although there are schedules to keep, I rarely need to work more than a couple of days per week. Two years ago I was given the task of creating an indoor thunderstorm (sound, flashing lights, and rain) for a rather large young children's exhibit. It took a lot of research to make it appear as real as possible, yet avoid high voltage and other safety concerns. We also couldn't use strobe lights because that kind of flash can cause seisures in some challenged children.. A lot of research and experimenting was required to make it work. We ended up with a painted Styrofoam cloud attached to the ceiling with many tiny holes in it so the water that comes out is formed into droplets. A pump and reservoir tank hidden inside the exhibit provides the rain water.. A pipe runs from the pump, up through the wall, and above the ceiling to the cloud. A bright daylight colored floodlight is hidden below, but in a dry spot. It is flashed at the cloud to simulate the lightning and digital audio of thunder is played through hidden speakers, also in dry areas. There are 12 different thunder storms of varying lengths and intensity, all controlled by an industrial PLC (a kind of PC designed to operate machinery) The audio unit is a computer .wav file player that plays different .wav audio files on a photography type flash style memory card. Each audio file is activated by the PLC and a different storm plays each time the button is pressed, up to the 12th storm and then the sequence starts over again. Th button causes the storm sequence to start and the system is designed to ignore additional button presses until the storm being played comes to an end, plus a 15 second quiet time. Then it will begin playing the next thunderstorm the next time that the button is pressed. Under the cloud is a large simulated hill with Astro Turf on the top of it. The rain falls on the Astro Turf and a tray hidden below catches the rain, which then runs down a 6" wide water fall and into a level stream bed 18" above the floor. The kids can safely play in this water and add little stick dams between the rocks to divert the water in different directions. The water level in the stream never gets more than about 1/2" deep, because there are hidden drains in the edges of the stream bed. At the end of this stream there is a larger simulated rock with a big main drain. The rain reservoir and the pumps are hidden under the stream bed and the water is replaced daily with fresh city water to minimize contamination problems. About 10 years ago we were doing an Astronomy multi exhibit project For one of the exhibits in this project,they wanted to somehow show a slow motion simulation of light rays traveling from the Sun, Moon, and Stars toward Earth.This one took a lot of work for the small benefit that it produced. Many kids would push the button, but not look up to see what was happening. A start button caused tiny white lights to flash in sequence like a theater marque, but with only a few lights lit at a time. This string of lights was mounted to electrical conduit that was bent in a wavy shape and attached to the ceiling between the models of the Sun, Moon, and a Star toward the model of the Earth, so the effect was moving light toward the Earth. Since the distance between the Sun and Star to the Earth was greater, it took much longer for the flashing lights to reach the Earth than it did from the moon. I spent a lot of time in a high lift putting those conduits with the little lights on them up on the 18' ceiling of the museum. Again, the whole exhibit was controlled by a PLC. I enjoy making exhibits for them because it gives me many chances to kind of "think outside the box" and come up with something safe, reasonably priced, and always very unusua,l to demonstrate to children and adults some piece of Science in a way that makes it easy for them to understand. I do many of the sub-assemblies for these projects in my home shop and then go to their shop and work with their team to finish the project, or build I the whole exhibit in my own shop, if it's small enough to do this way. I also enjoy making things that educate kids and make them happy. Charley

I eat a lot of sawdust, but I don't need a fork or a knife. Now go try scroll sawing by steering the part with just your fingers and the heels of your hands resting on the front edge of your scroll saw's table. True, you can't always do this when cutting larger projects, but smaller and more precise work requires better control, and this is the best solution that I have come up with.It works very well for my students as well as me. I think you will like the result. Charley

I bought the first part to fix a DeWalt 788 from Radio Shack. It was the correct 10 K (not 50 k) ohm value and a linear taper, but the shaft was about 3" long and round. I hack sawed it to length and filed the flat in it so it would fit the DeWalt knob (check position of flat in old part with the shaft set to zero and do the same on new part or number marks on knob will be off) . That was over a year ago, and as far as I know it's still running fine. The saw is in our club's outreach program trailer and the part was given to the present leader of the outreach program to be installed. I didn't do the installation. The saw had broken loose in transit and the shaft and knob were broken off when it fell over. Charley

If restoring it to full operation fails, you can find the part values of the existing parts as new replacements and then sell the pieces for about half the price of the new replacement part price. I'm certain that you will sell enough of it to recover your investment, but it might take a while. Charley.

If you can pull the switch out enough to read the writing on the sides of it, you may be able to find a source for a replacement switch. The internet is a great way to find sources. A little unsoldering, and resoldering plus a little re-assembly and your lamp could be like new again. Light manufacturers only vary rarely make their own switches. Most are sourced as an OEM part from other manufacturers. Sometimes the manufacturer will send a sample, so if they won't sell in small quantities, ask for a sample (you only need one). Good luck with your search. Charley

Yes, it is usually an oval shape because it is the sink hole, but sometimes rectangular with rounded corners if it is from the kitchen sink when it comes as scrap from a cabinet shop. They also frequently have short off cuts when they cut the sheet to the length of the cabinet order.. If you are the only one requesting it from them, it's usually free and they are glad to get rid of it. If anyone else is also asking for it, the price goes up rapidly. Charley

You can even bend light around corners if you make radiused (not right angle) one piece curves with the plexi. It's a great learning experience. Light will come out of the face surfaces, but most of it will stay inside as long as the surfaces are smooth.Engravings will light up brightly because you are interrupting the light path and it will come out of that altered area. Have fun with it. Charley