I've gutted an old laptop and i'm going to mount it in a peice of furniture (i'm bored). However the gap between the unit and (lcd) panel needs to be covered, the first idea i had was to use a picture mount or similar system basicly copy the dimentions of the panels holder ala laptop picture frame. But i had an idea i'm not sure would work. I thought about painting the top of the unit black and then covering the whole thing in tinted perspex so when the screen is off it should be hidden but when the back light comes on it should shine through. However I don't know how readable the screen will be behind what may have to be quite dark perspex to hide the gap around the panel. Any one tried this or seen it done? How did it look?
you could have clear glass cover the gap with a black vynl backing, but the black has a hole where the screen will go, and when the screen is off it will look fairly black then you wont have issues with it being dull when the backlight is on. or maybe try this technique with a piece of lightly tinted vynl covering the "hole" in the pure black vynl backing if the screen is noticably lighter than the black around it.
Simosaurs: sounds good, the only issue i think i may have is cutting straight, its not exactly my speciality. Credits i thought about that it might make a nice bedside lamp all light up, couple of bright white leds would do it nicely.
Encase any one wanders across this in the marching of time, so far Simosaurs idea seems to work great. http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?p=1825923#post1825923
