Building a Back-Lit Movie Poster Frame

I’ve been wanting to build a back-lit movie poster frame for a few years now. 

After many days, weeks, months and years of thinking about it, I finally got ‘round to it.

Made a quick sketch on my iPad...

It’s going to have a height of 1030 mm and 695 mm width on the inside of the frame.

The frame is made of pine, 65 mm x 20 mm. The back is hardboard, 4mm thick.

The back will be covered in tin foil, glued down.

LED strips will be placed on the tin foil. Around 3 m in a giant S.

There power plug will go in through the bottom side near the left corner.

There is an inner frame of 18 mm x 18 mm pine, that will act as a spaced above the LED lights.

A sheet of clear acrylic will be screwed in this. The acrylic will be sanded to make it diffuse the LED light.

Another inner frame will be made of the same size as the fixed inner frame, using 18 mm x 18 mm pine.

On this frame another sheet of clear acrylic will be fixed. This two sheets will sandwich the movie poster and be held together by magnets.

The movie poster can be changed out by just pulling the top sheet off by the frame. Then just placing the new poster in place and putting the outer frame back on. 

Cut the pieces.

Assembled the main frame using 40 mm screws and normal PVA wood glue. Used some corner square clamps to help keep it square while the glue dried.

A view of the reverse side and small 16 mm screws holding the base on.

Filled holes and gaps with filler. Then sanded it smooth.

A close up of the lower left corner. Notice the small round hole for the LED power cable.

Masked the backing board ready for painting.

The paint was black satin spray paint.

These are the pieces that will make up the top inner frame.

Glued on tin foil to the backboard.

Attached the LED light strip and connected the power.

Sanded one layer of Perspex to make it diffuse the lights.

Now to build the top frame.

The magnets are 10 mm diameter, so cut some holes for them. Two on each side, and one top and one on the bottom.

 

Screwed the frame to the acrylic using 16 mm screws. Had to counter sink the acrylic to make the screws sit flush.

Do the same for each four sides.

The final product. The inner top frame sides perfectly inside the outer frame.

Put some paper tape on the back and screwed on some D-clips.

And a felt pad on the two bottom corners. They help to keep it level aid air flow around the back to minimise risk of mould.

Close-up of the mounting D-clips, and the cord tied on.

Did some measurements and hammered in the mounting hook.

And its finally complete, hoorah!