What type lights to highlight wood turnings on craft tour?

[Brenda Swiger]

My husband’s workshop will be on a tour circuit this fall. His workshop is lighted with ceiling fluorescent lights. He needs tohave better lighting to accent his wood turnings on the display shelves. His display shelves are not permanent, but will fold down for storage. What has worked for any of you who have participated in craft shows/tours? It needs to be unobtrusive so people don’t trip over anything on the floor. Thanks.

[Dave Fritz]

I don't know off hand but I wonder if you went to an art gallery or museum and asked them? I know they really have some beautiful displays and I don't recall seeing wires all over the place. I hope someone else has some better experience to share.

Dave Fritz

[Tony De Masi]

Quite honestly there is no "correct" answer to this question. As with many things personal preference is at work here. I have been showing for a bit now and I personally like to use LED Daylight bulbs. For my taste they work quite well. Others I know, who are also turners, use LED bulbs but don't like the Daylight ones. They prefer to use the soft white ones.

[Brenda Swiger]

I never thought about stopping by a gallery, may have to check that out. The LED bulbs would definitely be better than halogens which get so hot. Guess we will need to see whether the daylight bulbs or soft white ones will show best in his workshop with his current overhead fluorescent lights. Thanks.

[Geoff Whaling]

Simply do a Google search for "tips for craft show display lighting" it will give you plenty of ideas. This one covers a fair bit - http://www.craftprofessional.com/show-lights.html

I would go for LED's as well. Their low power consumption means more lights for the available power, more accent lights etc. Having organized professional events with trade show displays it really is easy to see the difference good lighting makes to the interest level in a display. Well thought out and well presented lighting creates interest.

[Olaf Vogel]

To highlight colours correctly, you want halogens. They have the most neutral tones. Cheap. Any size you want. Generate a lot of heat, use a lot of power. Most galleries, museums use these.

LEDs can have the correct color balance, but usually for pro photo setups....and they are very expensive.

Fluorescent tubes are generally not great, too blue and can flicker, not directional. Great for back ground light though.

i use cheap screw mounts and very high power CFL, like 105 watts,which is 400w equivalent, from the pro photo uses. Order them by the case off eBay, about $10 per bulb. They usually have a decent color balance, create tons of light and run cool.

they also go into my el cheapo ikea work light fixtures near the lathe.

[Bill Boehme]

Despite what seems logical, galleries don't always have the best lighting. I discovered this last year when a group of turners had an exhibition and a couple of my pieces that included blues and greens looked really drab under the tungsten lighting that probably had a color temperature of about 2500K.

i have some low voltage 50 watt per bulb halogen track lighting in my shop and it is a big improvement over regular tungsten, but still not really full spectrum daylight because it is still a bit deficient in blue and violet.

there are some really good broad spectrum LED lights available now, but there are also some that claim to be daylight, but are rather green if compared to natural lighting. All that I can suggest is to experiment with some different LED bulbs to see if any are satisfactory.

i haven't found any fluorescents, including CFLs, that are satisfactory.

[Brenda Swiger]

Thanks for the additional comments. I will pass these on to my husband. No doubt we will need to do some pretesting of light bulb options before the tour circuit next month.