Luke Schiesser Project 2: Lasercutting

Process

I knew going into this that I wanted something to help me with modelling. I initially wanted to make a large folding toolbox similar to the one shown in Toy Story 2, but realized that it would be incredibly difficult and time-consuming. I also thought about making a tray for assembling midels, but that didn't really fit the requirements of the assignment. I ended up settling on a box with compartments to hold leftover parts from my kits that could be used in future projects. These are commonly known in the modelling community as "bits boxes."


I initially sketched out a design with a hinged lid, but I thought it would be too difficult to design the hinge from scratch, so I shifted to a sliding lid design. I divided the interior into four small compartments and one large one in order to store bits of various sizes.




I decided to go with a ramshackle theme for the box, inspired by the orks from Warhammer 40K. I love these guys, expecially because if they believe something will work hard enough, it just does. I hoped to channel that energy into my build.

To hold the coin, I added a circle in the front of the box, a second layer in front with a slightly smaller hole, and a backing plate. The coin is embedded in the box without glue or tape. I toyed with the idea of having the coin be removable, possibly to lock/unlock the box, but I eventually dropped that idea.



For the laser-etched design, I wanted a very orkish design on the lid. I found a scrap metal background image online and added an ork war cry on top (WAAAGH means war in orkish). I played around with the greyscale contrast on the background and text to get different etching depths, and finally found a combo I liked.



Result

The sliding lid design proved much simpler than the hinged design, but it still looks great and functions well.

One major problem arose when it came time to print. I had designed the box with the assumption that my material would be 0.25 in thick, but the actual thickness was closer to 0.23 in. I should have been able to solve this by simply changing the variable, but unfortunately I had modeled it in such a way that adjusting the parameter messed up the design and constraints.


I ended up keeping the dimensions and coating the joints in wood glue to fill the gaps. This worked quite well, and the box turned out very sturdy. I wiped away the excess wood glue so it wouldn't be visible.



Reflection




Overall, I'm farily pleased with how this turned out. I've learned to be more careful with my dimention constraints. If I had extra time, I would have liked to paint the exterior grey and add some highlights to bring out the texture.

While typing this, I realized that I accidentially etched the lid design upside-down. However, it's still legible, and orks don't care about precision.

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