Bezel Ideas

[Ginsu Victim]

Sorry for "derailing" the thread.

[Franco B]

Groan!    ( )

[Turnarcades]

and Charlie

SCARED!

Can't sleep.... train will eat me...! 

[whines]

What you want to ask for is 'Foamcore'. It's fine-celled foam sandwiched between two layers of thin cardboard. It's used to build architect's models.

Normally the foam is white and just the cardboard is colored, but there's a version that has black card with black foam--that's what you want.

Use a sharp, new blade to cut it and you shouldn't have any problems.

It's light and rigid and will keep its shape well. if you need to curve it, cutting a series of paralell shallow lines through it should let it curve to the shape you want...I haven't tried this myself though!

[Ginsu Victim]

We've mentioned foamcore. I use it myself.

If you can cut it and it turns out nice, you're a genius. No matter what I do, that stuff always messes up somewhere during the cutting process.

[spOOf]

I'll try it out and let you guys know.  Good point about the tapping though.  I'll have to make sure I do that really well so it doesn't bleed through.

Okay, I did some painting over the weekend and put 3 or 4 coats on the plexi using a roller.  I tapped it carefully before hand.  Let it dry and pulled the tape off.  Looked beautiful!  It bled under a little bit at a corner, but it's easy to scrap off with even your fingernail.

I'm so happy I found this thread.

I'll post photos of the "bezel" as soon as I load them up.

[speedklz]

Best way to cut that stuff is with a HotWire cutter. We used to build them all the time for use in models.
http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page171.html check it out here. And you can up the voltage for hotter cutting.

[Santoro]

I have had incredible results with the spraypaint-behind-tinted glass approach. It isn't authentic (at least I've never seen it on a 'real' machine) but it looks better than any cardboard or plastic bezel I have ever seen.

[Endaar]

This whole bezel issue stinks. I spent more time on my bezel than almost any other part of my project, and I still don't like how it came out.

I agree it's nearly impossible to cut the foamboard cleanly, and even if you do so, you still have something like a 1/4" ugly edge that you're looking at. I ended up buying custom-cut matting (that you'd normally use when framing a picture) which looks a lot better.

Endaar

[IG-88]

Where did you get that matting at? Local frame shop? How much was it?