Anyone else building Legos in a dark projector room?

[weddlec]

So my family has always built Legos in the living room in front of the TV. Usually we are on the couch on the coffee table. We have recently moved and in our new house I took the time to build a theater room. Not a lot different other than the fact that instead of being in front of a Plasma TV that lights up the room and was great with the lights on...Now we use a projector system in the dark. This has greatly cut out building time down. The move was fun because we cleaned all of out sets and disassembled them. We are now in the process of rebuilding out collection. It has been about a year and we have only built 5 of our sets. The reason for this is because it is hard to build in the dark. There is not enough light coming off of the projector to light our work. There is no possibility of turning the lights on. Family time is actually better because to build we have to turn the TV off. The downside is that we used to do 1-2 sets a week. Here is where I need help.

Any ideas on a table setup I could build that would shine light only on the surface we are working on. I have tried desk lamps with shades but light always ends up not covering enough of the table or it shines in our eyes.

[vynsane]

How about a pair of Drafting table lamps? They clutch to the side of the table and are on swing-arms in order to direct the light where you want/need it.

[kelano28]

This might be the engineer in me talking but I've always wanted to build a light table and try to do night building on it..

Not sure how well it would work with bricks but the idea fascinates me.

[Rook]

Strap a caving light to your head.

[RfAurora]

Light tables might work if you swap an LED light string instead of the lamps used for burning silk screens and other items.

[mdilthey]

Only use glow-in-the-dark bricks

[Kyle]

If building something custom isn't a problem, I'd try a big flat table with a 3-4" lip around the edges. Then a molding around the top edge of the lip that overhangs into the box by a ways, with a LED rope light running all the way around under the lip. My thinking is that the 360º lighting would make for a well-lit work area without having to fight with shadows, while the lip would keep the light from hitting your eyes directly. As a bonus, the lip would keep you from having to chase runaway round bits!

I'd probably line the interior with felt or something similar, 'cause a) I hate trying to pick flat pieces up off a hard smooth surface with my fat fingers , and b) it'd kill any glare off the surface from the rope lights.

Man, now I wanna go build one for myself. Anyone got a table saw I can borrow?