Wow what a great solution! This will be great for the Ecto once it gets here. Did you use 1/4 panes? Can you share from where and also what you used for the base?
Here is the original plan I did in AutoCAD to get an idea of what I wanted to do before I got started:
Pretty much followed this drawing except I made a few changes. Instead of using 2x4's for the base I ended up using 2x2 to have it sit lower. I also didn't route a trench for the acrylic to sit in on the base. The acrylic just sits directly on top of the base as it made it much easier for me to get it on and off if I want to.
I sourced the acrylic from a local company here in Cleveland, OH. They are 5 pieces of clear 0.25" acrylic and 1 0.25" piece of white acrylic that the models sit on. Came out to around $275 I believe for all the acrylic and $15 for the wood for the base. Much cheaper than the $2000 quotes I was getting.
I learned during the process that acrylic is not glued together, you actually melt the plastic pieces and weld them together via a special liquid. Can get this liquid from Amazon. It was cheap and there a lot of videos on Youtube that show how to do it but basically, you hold the two pieces of acrylic together and use a syringe filled with the acrylic weld to fill the gap between the two pieces. By capillary action the acrylic weld will melt the two pieces together after a few seconds.
The base is just 2x2's that I mitered the corners with my miter saw and joined via wood glue and screws. Then I painted it matte black with matte clear on top of the black. The acrylic top just rests right on top. It is heavy enough that it doesn't move at all (in fact I need help lifting it off and back on if I need to change the display). Anyone attempting could route a trench in there for the top to sit in while on the base but without a workshop, I couldn't achieve the level of precision I believe I needed to make that happen.
Once everything was done, I used my orbital buffer to buff out any imperfections in the acrylic and give it a good shine.