Lithophane material and thickness

[Frank Aarre]

has anyone done lithophanes of same image in differing materials and thicknesses? that would be interesting to see, i'm in the phase of aquiring materials for this and it would be nice to see what others have learned from experimenting.
Acrylic, corian 1/8" 1/4". what do you use. I've only done 2 lithophanes, i have no idea wht the material was, as it was some scrap pieces i found. they were 3mm(1/8")thick although they looked good, i assume there would be better definition and contrast with thicker material?

Frank

[tonydude919]

Frank,

I have done a lot of lithophanes and I always use 1/4" corian. Example is attached.

Tony

[tonydude919]

I use a .0625 ball nose bit when carving in one pass.

Tony

[Xxray]

.25 is optimal - No margin for error or depth with 1/8, .5 too thick and really needs to be milled to .25-.30.
But give it a shot and see what happens, worse that can happen is you punch through and ruin the project.

[marting]

Hello Guys, I'm Marten and have been wanting to do a 3D Lithophane for quite a while and now that I have some space to do something of my own, I'll be having a go at my first 3D Lithophane. Now, since I live in Malta (a small island in the mediterranean) and that specific materials are not readily found (unless imported in relatively large quantities), was wondering if: a) if using acrylic instead of using corian, which is a variation of acrylic, would present any processing problems and b) white opaque color could be used to do a decent job. Any recommendations?
Thanks
marting

[pops1964]

Yes 1/4" corian is your best choice and if you dont want to buy a full sheet your best bet is e-bay theres a company out of Minnisota that will sell you all the pieces you want in alot ot different sizes with fast shipping and very good prices. Pop's

[bill565]

A while back I had some success in using a plastic cutting board from one of the local cheap outlet stores. While not one to sell it was great to test my approach with and keep costs low.

They are harder to find around here but that may be an option.

Bill

[JamesB]

Marten - I used regular acrylic many years ago to make lithophanes and it works OK so it would be fine to practice with, in my experience though it was inferior to Corian (other Solid Surface brands) with regard to the finished product and quality of the image. Your best chance would be to see if there are kitchen/bathroom counter top companies in Malta using these type of materials and see if you can buy off-cuts or scrap from them.

There is a guy in the UK who sells scrap by the Kilo but the shipping would not be cheap as its very heavy.

Thanks,
James

[martin54]

As James has said your best bet would be to find a high end Kitchen/Bathroom Company & speak to them, Corian is a solid surface material manufactured by Du Pont but there are other manufacturers of solid surface materials which may be used more frequently where you live.

Not sure who in the UK you are talking about James but I paid a guy for a mixed bag of Corian & never recieved anything at all, paid through paypal using his email address. Never looked in to it again after that.

[JamesB]

Martin, I don't recall who it was but I got their info off the forum somewhere. I can look it up if you want to PM me?