As you may have seen from my previous posts, I've created the instrument panel displays using Publisher, and I'm pretty happy with them. Printed on 80gm A4 paper with a light behind it the whole display lights up which isn't realistic and not the effect I wanted. So the next logical step was to blank out from behind the parts I didn't want the light shining through.....A bit more thinking and problem solved!
To start with, I printed the panel display twice and then backed one copy with some slightly thicker card (green, as seen here).Then, with a sharp craft knife I carefully cut out all the areas that contained text or represent lines. It is important to not cut out too much and also to ensure everything is perpendicular.
This next image show a close up of the first bit of cutting out with a bit of back-lighting. From this you can see how important it is to ensure that the cuts are clean and tidy, and accurate. You don't want to 'over cut' the size of the holes and you need to make sure that the two sets of images line up correctly.
....And here is the engine start panel fully cut out and assembled with the switches in place - not a perfect image due to the low light level, but it gives a good impression of what the panel will look like once in place. At this stage the light level for the back ground hasn't been defused or balanced to get an even glow through the screen - that will be the next task.
