Blocking the light at the end of the tunnel

[Monkeyvoodoo]

Any suggestions on how to block light leaks from inside the cabinet? I'm thinking duct tape. Not the gray stuff but the shiny stuff.

Has anyone used something else?

[SavannahLion]

From where exactly? If between the seams on the wood, you need to work on your craftsmanship there. They have classes or you can go work for Ond for a couple of weeks.

If you mean between disparate materials such as the coin door or the acrylics, I guess it depends on what it is. I'm not sure if it's still sold but you used to be able to buy colored silicone. I used to purchase black and red to patch up the leaks in the cracked weld seams in the body of my first truck. I think it was sold in the counter top section in order to reasonably match the off color countertops there.

Anyways.... Not sure if I would use duct tape. That tends to fall off after a year or two.

Other alternatives I can think of is to use bondo, putty, expanding foam, cut foam, or just about anything that has mass and can be shaped accordingly. I would lean towards silicone as it's easy to apply and shape, has reasonable light blocking ability and can be reasonably easy to remove.

Really, it would depend on where the seam is.

[Vigo]

My guess is that he might be asking about an open backed cabinet, or something with a loose back door behind the marquee light, maybe?

You are spot on about the usefulness of "shiny duct tape" aka aluminum foil tape. That stuff is good for refracting light outward.



I have made cheap and easy marquee back to my open backed vigolix using aluminum foil tape over a piece of acrylic. Made the marquee lighting brighter and  more evenly lit. Then covered the back side with landscape fabric so it had a nice black matte finish, and covered any additional hairline cracks between the acrylic and the wood sides. Of course, that is a budget solution for a budget cabinet. In most cases I would encase the marquee lighting area in wood.

Otherwise, SavannahLion has the bases covered, although I would avoid touching expandable foam like the plague, but maybe add wood glue to the list, to use when assembling.

[pbj]

Putty in the wood cracks, weather stripping for anything else.

[SavannahLion]

Besides the messy glue-like substance that's not actually a glue that gets everywhere and terrible cleanup what's wrong with expanding foam? I've used it to add structural mass to things like scale models (such as filling in the hull of a ship). Once it hardens it's stupidly easy to cut as long as it's not intended to be a finished surface.

Though I admit I never used it on a cab...
And now that I think about it, the yellow poop appearance isn't very professional.

[Vigo]

Probably more a personal thing, I suck with expanding foam. It's messy and I stink at gauging the amount it will expand, it seems different types expand different amounts. Maybe most people are better than I with it, but I avoid using it on anything I care about.