Rebecca Y. E. Lin
← Field Notes

what’s left when the tide ebbs?

Process notes on a layered acrylic light piece.

  • Fabrication
  • Light
  • Process

Letters gather into waves across three layers of acrylic, illuminated from below.

Front view of Tide, with illuminated letterforms forming layered waves.Close-up of the engraved letters and overlapping wave textures.Angled view showing the three acrylic layers and plywood base.
From left: the waves together, a closer look at the letters, and the space between the layers.

The base

The 279.4 × 95 × 45 mm base is made from 3 mm plywood. Three 10 × 11 inch sheets of 3 mm acrylic, spaced 16 mm center to center, insert 15 mm into the base.

The battery compartment has 19 mm of vertical clearance—about 6 mm above a ½-inch-thick battery. The design accommodates 8 mm-wide LED strips lying flat on the middle slab, with wires routed through the corner cutouts. The joints fit together without glue.

AssembledSeparated
AcrylicPlywoodLED stripsBattery

Making files

Plywood

19 pieces · 457.95 × 285.4 mm

Download PDF ↓w/ cable opening
Full plywood cutting sheet: three horizontal panels, four walls, and twelve supports, outlined in red.

Clearance adjustments are included in the files: total differences, not per-side offsets. Negative is tighter; positive is looser.

  • Teeth: −0.40 mm.
  • Upright slots: −0.40 mm along tab width and across nominal plywood thickness: the tested 3.60 × 2.60 mm slots for 4 mm tabs in 3 mm plywood.
  • Middle-slab slots: −0.20 mm along tab width; −0.40 mm across nominal plywood thickness.
  • Acrylic slots: +0.05 mm relative to nominal 3 mm acrylic.

Fit depends on material thickness, cutter, and focus. Test joint fit and engraving and cutting settings on scrap before running the full files.