Anyone have any experience with edge lighting acrylic ?

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My dad's coupe has '37 Ford tail lights and while they look cool, they're fairly small and not super bright.

So, we're experimenting with some different ideas on edge lighting some strips of acrylic and attaching them in the front edge of the deck lid to shine through the 168 louvers on the deck lid when the brakes are applied.

Has anyone ever done anything like this, or know where I can find some information on how to get the best results ? I found a website that sells all of the stuff to do the edge lighting, but they don't have a lot of detailed information on how to do it yourself.

This may sound goofy, but I was watching an episode of the show "Street Customs" and they built a vehicle that they were putting some shelves built with acrylic in and the guy very briefly explained how to do the edge lighting. I guess I'll see if I can find that episode On Demand or DVR it and see if that's any help.

Any other suggestions ?

-Aaron

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What exactly do you want to know? If you are wanting an entire piece of acrylic to light up you are going to need to frost the entire surface with media blasting or a laser engraver. Then light it from the edge with LED's You can go all the way around with LED's for more light. If you put the lights on a clear piece you will get almost zero light transfer into the piece. Clear acrylic has better visual clarity than any glass. You have to rough it up for the effect to take like you are wanting. PM me if you need help I have done this before and still have a bunch of stuff.