My experience with back-lit styrene is that you have to make an effort to prevent glow-through with solid, non-transparent plastic parts. For my structures, I paint the insides of the walls flat black, and even then I put pieces of cardstock inside to further block light leakage. This isn't just for the cracks in the wall joints - it's for the entire wall, and the roof, too. Otherwise, my buildings look like what I call the "Chernobyl Valley Railroad," all aglow from the inside.
So, as long as you use reasonably thin styrene, the light will shine through pretty well even if it looks solid when not lit up.
By the way, remember to provide for ventilation of the light bulb. Even in G, that globe is going to be fairly small and heat will build up inside it. You wouldn't want to melt the globe down after you've spent so much time on it.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I'm working out a way to make a lighted Conoco gas pump globe...like this:
Conoco Globe
Specifically for this type of gas pump:
Conoco pump
This will be in G scale so it's big enough for easy lighting. I'm hoping to use two Plastruct acrylic elliptical domes glued together for the globe. By the way, since this is Plastruct acrylic, are these domes clear? If not then the whole lighting project is scrapped. I might even use a large size dome for the green part with the center drilled out so I can fit a smaller dome in for the Conoco part.
But what I've been reading up about online is Tamiya clear paints, specifically green. I'm looking at Tamiya X-25 Clear Green. Will this work for my project? Are there better choices, other clear paint brands? Should I airbrush it, or brush paint it? What's Tamiya PS44 Translucent Green?
Also are there other methods to make the round domes? Plastruct makes the right size for my scale so this is likely the best way to do it.
Matt from Anaheim, CA and Bayfield, COClick Here for my model train photo website