Tag Archives: box

I made some things!

Posted by Steve on May 22, 2016 No comments

I know I don’t post here often enough, and every time I think about it, I just kind of brush it away, but hey, I am doing it now! Mostly because A lot of the stuff I would post regularly, I do over on the Comic page. It’s no good excuse, but aside from the comic and work, most of what I have been doing has been pretty mundane.

Till now.

If you follow along on the comic, you know that I picked up a 3D Printer and have been having quite a bit of fun with it. It’s been a blast. We have made all sorts of useful things for the house and some costume pieces as well. The most exciting thing to come from it has been a dive into 3D design using 123D Design (it’s a simple CAD program) that I have used to design some game boxes for card based games like Fluxx and the Looney Pyramid games. Not to slight the boxes they come in, but the StarFluxx box used to travel with us in Sarah’s purse for play while we were out and it got pretty beat up. So I designed a cool box that holds the cards and travels well. Likewise, the Pyramid bags are cool, but they get cumbersome.

Also, on kind of a dare/challenge from my Son, who is really into period re-enactment, I made a wooden looking version of one of the Pyramid games, that can be taken to events and not look like a 20th century plastic game.

The printer I picked up is a Makerbot Replicator 2, it was on sale from Amazon for a fraction of the normal cost. It’s build area is roughly 11x6x6 (inches). Since it’s not one of the new fancy versions of their printer, turns out it’s incredibly easy to work on. If you have ever been around any sort of 3D printer, you would learn quick that all sorts of things can happen to them from jamming to parts failing. So having something that is easy to fix and repair is vital.

This is what happens when your extruder is leaking and it’s not caught in time.

Downside to buying an older version is that you don’t get all the bells and whistles, so I have had to improvise. One of the great things on newer versions is a build in camera to show the print as it’s happening. This way, if something goes wrong, you can address it quickly. Also, it’s great fun to watch something getting built. You may think it’s boring, but it really is fascinating. To make up for this shortcoming, I have setup two cameras that stream to the website and show the current build as it happens.

Sometimes I am building plain stuff, other times it’s cool stuff. So if you are interested, just click this link, or check out the tab on the top of the page for 3D printing.

In the meantime, get out there and make stuff!

Almost done with the Tardis!

Posted by Steve on August 6, 2011 1 comment

Been a little while since an update due to my starting the new job.

While I was at work the kid Started in on the signs for the top. Went for all wood and painted using a stencil. If we go full size I will definitely look into getting signs made.

Also, I think I see a table saw in my future. All of the cuts here were made with a handheld circular saw or a hand skill saw, and it shows. (and it makes me sad). But hey, this small one was more meant for fun and learning!

So here is where we are now:

We stuck the front door sign (phone box sign) on with Lamination and sticky back.

Whats left is the Lantern, and Window framing, and then some touch up painting!

Father Son 1/2 size TARDIS build

Posted by Steve on August 1, 2011 1 comment

So, the wife and I have now made it through all of the new Doctors and I am slowly working my way through the classics, as well as catching up on Torchwood.

One of the thing that struck me was the Tardis. I looked at it early on and thought…..I bet I could build one of those. See, I love woodworking. Especially odd ball stuff. I designed and build a box for my cat to have his food and water in that we could see into, but the dog couldn’t get to it. So I thought, “why not build a Tardis!” Shortly afterwards my Son mention that we should do it as a team project. Since he is prepping to join the military, I figured this was a good bond type of thing for us to do.

So, here we are. For the last two months I have been browsing the forum Tardisbuilders.com, looking at everyone’s builds and gaining inspiration. I know that I would have a few days off from work (just switched jobs) and it would be perfect timing for this build. I eventually want to build a Full scale box but wanted to start small and get ideas. This will help me build the larger one when it comes time.

So we started Wednesday and I made a point to try and take pictures along the way.

Since this is a 1/2 scale (ish) we started with a simple base frame:

We opted to have the walls be plywood (1/4 inch thick) and cut out the squares.

Sonic Screwdriver says Math is Hard!

Cutting out the squares:

Our Corner pieces are 4×1 inch paired with a 3×1 inch, 4 feet long:

With the walls attached (doors are just leaning)

And here we are after today. Doors attached and everything mounted on the base:

So Thursday we got the backings on all the panels and added a roof to brace for when we add the tiers (and to hold everything in place.

Also, First Blood happened. I almost always bleed somehow on every project. Thankfully it’s only a small puncture.

You may also notice that the top is a tad shorter. We cut off about 3 inches to solve the tall top problem. our sinage will be about 3 inches tall so we should have maybe an inch of overage.

A big lesson learned here would be to save the door attachments until after the top is on. We now will need to take the doors off and trim them up a bit as they stick when opening. (Through warped wood or being 1/4 inch off.) That’s one of the downsides to working small scale. even 1/4 of an inch can cause HUGE problems.

Next stop, Lowes to pick up wood for the Signs and Roof! I think we may look at doing a flat roof instead of the slanted as in 1/2 scale the difficulty curve is pretty high.

We painted on Saturday and that means some outside time. I am so glad my shop is downstairs in the basement where it’s nice and cool.

So here’s where we are now: Took the doors off and started painting the main body, first coat.

While that was drying (and the wife helped with the second coat) the kid and I went down to build the roof. here it is sitting on the top. (Not the actual lantern that will be used)

I bought some pre-cut plexi for the windows and left the frost plastic on them.

So that leaves us with the Signs, Window frames, and Lantern for the top.

I opted to not do the Phone box on the side door because of the material we are using being very thin and the overall size being very small. On the plus side, the whole thing is extremely light!

Busy weekend

Posted by Steve on April 25, 2011 No comments

This weekend was pretty damn packed! Spent some time with Louis and Jen helping them move. It was practically just across the street but still managed to smash my face on a box, rack my knee on the concrete and jam my thumb to the point where it flipped the nail up. Came home and finished up adding the divider to Sarah’s planter so she could finish up her herb garden. We also had a small visitor emerge from his cocoon. The butterfly from the previous post got some garden time before taking off (or being eaten by a bird, we aren’t too sure about what happened with him, but we will hope for the best.)

Battered and accomplished I set in for some Portal 2 time. I will do my best to get a full review of it up sometime after I finish the single player and start in on Co-Op (and whenever I can stop laughing!).

Sunday I managed to replace the kitchen sink disposal too! Thankfully Lowes was open and had a great plumbing expert on hand! Install of the new one was done in about an hour and they were an awesome help, despite the kludge that is my kitchen sink plumbing.

All in all, a very fulfilling weekend!

Planter Box for Sarah. Spent all day Saturday building this from…

Posted by Steve on April 17, 2011 No comments

Planter Box for Sarah.

Spent all day Saturday building this from scratch. Sarah wanted a raised planter-box for an herb garden out on the deck. This is 7ft long, 2 1/2 ft wide, and 3 ft tall. Still need to paint/treat the plywood inside base so it won’t rot. Will try and get pics up next weekend when it is filled and in place.