Light table madness: This pieced-together light table works like a charm.

QUICK AND DIRTY

LIGHT TABLE

A storage bin, a pane of glass, and fluorescent light saves hundreds of dollars. By Hiram Cook

A couple of weeks ago my wife asked me to make her a 2-foot by 3-foot poster to display at a retirement party for a friend from work. I created the image on the computer and printed it using a graphics program that sections large, banner- and poster-sized images into pieces that a home printer can handle. But after trying to line up the sections to neatly tape them together, I realized that I needed a light table to get the alignment right.

Necessity is the mother of invention. In a hurry and not wanting to spend big bucks on a light table I might never need again, I looked around for light table makings. For the tabletop, I used the storm window from our back door. It

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measured 25 by 36 inches — big enough to hold the finished poster. I laid the glass flat on a storage bin without its top, and placed the bin on top of a bench to bring the tabletop up to workable waist height. For the light underneath, I used a 23-watt compact fluorescent bulb screwed into a light adapter and plugged it into a power strip, all inside the bin.

This improvised light table worked like a charm. I taped the poster together in no time, it came out looking great, and my wife was happy — which is what really counts, isn’t it?

Hiram Cook is a CNC programmer from Allentown, Penn., who enjoys solving problems with low-tech solutions.

Illustration by Damien Scogin