Anyway, with the two long side panels done and mounted, I could lean them up against the wall of our studio. I hung an LED light strip on the corkboard behind it and turned it on to gauge how well the glass diffused the light. Then I hung the light strip in two lengths, side by side, to figure out how wide the glow would spread.
It turns out that the best diffusion occurs at a depth of 2.5-3.0". Less than 2.5" and you start to see stripes of light instead of a general glow; more than 3" and the light isn't intense enough to really light 'er up. So that tells me how deep to make the light box. And there's little difference between strips hung 2" apart and strips hung 3" apart: either way, you get about 5" of strong illumination on the glass, fading away on either side after that.
So now I can get to work on designing the light box. I'll buy the wood this week and hie me over to Dick Carl's to saw it up. This has all got to be worked around my scheduled colonoscopy on Wednesday (oh, be joyful). Anyway, by next Sunday we should be able to show the windows after church (not yet mounted to the light box). And, we need to do some positional studies against the wall where the box is to go, to figure out how high to place it. We want it to show to its best advantage, neither too high nor too low. In a couple of weeks, we may be able then to proceed to mount the box and wire it in.
Target: Dedication by the youth in morning worship June 4.
