I have finally started the star field that will be ending up in my master bathroom ceiling (you can follow that story here).
Star map for ceiling star field. (Click to enlarge)
Me plotting stars and measuring for the middle support braces.
3 x 5 sheet primed and I'm starting to cover it with construction paper.
Next I primed and painted a 3′ X 5′ sheet of MDF (which I hope was a good material to use, time will tell See Update at bottom of post). I then covered it with construction paper and drew the a scaled grid on it. Then using the printed 8″ X 10″ paper I plotted each star to the best of my abilities and marked it size with different colors. After all the plotting was done and I was satisfied with where the stars where, I drilled each hole one by one using three different sized drill bits (3/64, 1/16, 3/32). I then flipped the board over, remarked what size each star was, and Jen (my wife) and I pushed through the number of fibers I needed for each hole until all 200 of them were completed. Once the fibers where in place, Jen glued them in place with clear silicon.
Arranging the fibers
Pushing fibers through the board
Update: Well using the sheet of MDF may have not been the greatest idea for a bathroom. Since I had the shower glassed in, the steam from the shower has cause the MDF around each fiber to expand slightly creating a small bump where each fiber is. Though this doesn’t affect the light passing through the fiber it doesn’t look overly appealing to the eye in the daylight. I’m thinking of redoing this project (starfield 2.0) using a John Hardy Cement board or something more moisture resistant. I imagine if i had built this in any other room than the bathroom, MDF would have been fine. Keep checking back for the 2.0 version of the starfield, of course with the twins, basement, laundry room, garage, and wine room… who really knows when that will actually happen.
Tags: fiber optic, fiber optic star field ceiling, LED fiber optic star field ceiling., star feild