How to make EL Wire Art

Step 6 Thread and Glue

(Note: Be sure to cut your EL wire long enough that after you have glued it into place, there is still enough sticking out the back side that you can work with it and solder it.)

Thread some of the EL wire through the hole, from the back side of the acrylic sheet to the front. Hold the EL wire down where you want to glue it, using your scratches as a guide. Start by only gluing an inch or less. Holding the EL wire in place, and pressing it down lightly, use the Plasticator needle to apply a drop or two of glue. Just put a droplet on the EL wire, and it will run down the sides. Capillary action will suck the glue into place, at the point where the EL wire meets the acrylic surface. Using the fingernails of one or two fingers, hold the EL wire in place for 30-60 seconds while the glue melts the acrylic and creates a bond. Then move the next inch of EL wire into place, and glue it in the same way, and so on. If you glue wire onto the shape, and there is EL wire left over, you can simply cut off the extra EL wire with wire cutters or nippy cutters.

Note: The reason for using fingernails instead of the fleshy part of your finger, is that the flesh of your finger will overlap the EL wire, touching the acrylic, and if they get glue on them, they can leave a smudge... and by the way, I always end up with smudges on these projects, where extra glue gets somewhere, or my fingers get in the glue.

Comments

[phazerave]

isnt el wire breakable if you bend it at too much of an angle? or am I mistaken. obviously you did it but is there a technique for bending it so sharply?

[GlowWireGuy]

2.5mm and 2.6mm EL wire won't break if you bend it on too sharp of an angle. What can happen is that you can end up with a little area of darkness at the bend, or you could possible break one of the hair thin radial wires. (I think the wire would still light just as brightly with just one of the radial wires intact.)

But for this Instructable, I used the tiny 1.2mm wire, aka "angel hair" wire. It seems to be much more forgiving, because I really pinched the wire to get those points as sharp-looking as I could, and there were no failures, no problems.

I knew getting sharp points with 2.5mm wire would be very iffy. On the Jack-O-Lantern, I used 2.3mm orange for the teeth, and I pinched them really hard to make the teeth look pointy... and the wire failed completely - I had to pull the EL wire off the mirror, wiggle it around until it worked, and re-glue it. So apparently, if you need to make some sharp points, 1.2mm wire is the way to go... although this Instructable here:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Removable-EL-wire-art-panels/

shows a brilliant way to get sharp looking points without actually stressing out the EL wire with any sharp bends.

[jeff-o]

Maybe latex gloves would help a bit with the smudges. At least the smudges won't be fingerprint-y.

[GlowWireGuy]

That's a great idea, thanks. I may have to try that next time.