Project 4b Skirting board with end-fitting lights

The Galaxy Star Ceiling

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	This is another very simple project – a variation on the coving project, in which small plastic end fittings are used instead of bare fibre. The end fittings serve to diffuse the light so you get larger, but less sharp spots of light dotted at your chosen interval along the skirting board. There’s no reason, of course, why you can’t combine the two approaches, alternating the diffuse light of the end fittings with sharper spots of light emanating from bare fibre ends. As always, you’re limited only by your imagination.

		Tools required: You’ll probably need to cut a groove in the back of the skirting board to accommodate the optical fibre. We’ve used a circular saw here (and probably gone a shade too deep!) but a router will do the job just as well. The depth and width of the groove depends on how much fibre will need to be accommodated.
We used an electrical drill to make the 8mm holes into which the shaft of the end fittings will fit snugly, some sandpaper to prepare the surface for painting and hot melt glue to secure the fibre in place. We decided to paint the skirting – you may prefer a natural or stained finish.
Preparing the skirting board Make a groove along the back surface of the skirting. This needs to be deep enough and wide enough to accommodate the fibres running back from the end fittings to wherever the bundled fibre leaves the skirting enroute to the lightsource. Before cutting the groove decide where you want the end fittings to be (what height above the floor), since they will be seated in holes drilled along the groove.
			Decide how close you want the end fittings to be from each other, and then measure and mark their position. Drill an 8mm hole through from the front of the board. Push one of the end fittings through the first hole – if you’ve got the wrong size drill bit now’s the time to find out! The fittings are in the form of a shaft and “button”, with this latter part normally standing proud of the surface. However, you may prefer to have the entire fitting flush with the surface of the skirting board – in which case you’ll need a wider hole. Once all the holes are drilled to your satisfaction, sand the board to prepare it for painting. Paint in the colour of your choice, trying to avoid getting too much paint into the holes.
Remember, if you’re planning to use the colour wheel in the lightsource, not all colours of paint will work harmoniously with all of the colours of the wheel.
When the paint has dried and you’re satisfied with the finish, you can move on to placing the fibres and end fittings. Long before now, you should have decided where the lightsource is going to go in relationship to the skirting sections which you plan to illuminate. As always, a bit of careful planning and measurement will save you money in terms of the amount of fibre you’re going to need. Ideally, the lightsource should be equidistant from the two furthest points of light output, although this may not always be possible, and of course there’s always the possibility that you may be using that same lightsource to illuminate another fibre optic lighting effect elsewhere in the house. Remember, the lightsource can accommodate around 350 1mm fibres.

Inserting the fibres You have a choice here: either fix the fittings into place and then add the fibres, or else fix the fibres to the fittings out in the open – where you have easy access – and then pull the completed fibre-fitting assembly back into the skirting board. However, before doing that, you need to decide how many fibres you want to put in each fitting. Once again, this is entirely a matter of taste and trial and error. Don’t do your experimenting in broad daylight – try to test the light output in the sort of light levels in which the skirting lights will be used normally. The design of the socket of the end fitting is such that you won’t get a linear relationship between the number of fibres and the light output, so it really pays to experiment here so that you don’t waste fibre. Similarly, if you think it’s worth drilling out the shaft of the fitting to accommodate more fibres or simply to change the internal geometry, go for it – experimentation is half the fun of fibre optic lighting projects. As each fitting is completed, lay its fibres into the groove. Try to avoid hard bends in the fibre since kinking damages the fibre coating and reduces light transmission. You can secure the fibre in the groove with duct tape, hot melt glue, staples (if they’re wide enough to span the groove) or anything else which you think will do the job – once the skirting board is pushed up against the wall the fibres won’t be able to move in any case. .
				When you come to fixing the skirting in place, there’s one obvious piece of advice – don’t put screws or nails along the line of the groove. Before fixing the skirting, do make sure that all the fibres are securely seated in the fittings – the ability to seal your lights permanently in place is one of the major advantages of fibre optic lighting, but obviously this works against you if the lights aren’t working at the very outset!
Apart from the coving and skirting projects which we’ve described here, there are many other areas where you could install a series of little fibre optic lights in the way described here.

For instance, if you have boxed-in pipe runs in the bathroom you could have lights studded along the box sections. Bookcases or bookshelves are also candidates, provided you can hide the fibre runs (that said, you might like to experiment with the gentle glow from the side of exposed fibre).

Star Cloths

End glow fibres