Always the guy to delay personal projects in favor of office work and/or procrastination, building a lightbox was in the pipeline for the better part of a year now.
I finally kicked myself in the rear during the christmas vacation, and with fatherly help (tool supplier), built the thing in about two days. More details and some pretty resulting pictures after the jump.
The unassembled box
Below you can see what the box looks like when taken appart. The idea was to have something i can disassemble for easier storage. It’s still quite big though as it basically consists of two planks 24″x16″ each.
A piano hinge keeps both planks together. I initially screwed every holes but it created too much interference when closed. So i got rid of half of them, keeping an empty hole opposite to every screw.
The assembly
You might have noticed in the first picture a bunch of aluminum bars, those are 90 degrees 1″ angles. They play the structural role of holding everything together. The plastic part below is what holds those bars in place, there is one at every corner of the planks.
So the process here is to put every angle in its appropriate plastic receiver, as you can see in the next few pictures.
The interchangeable back round
I wanted my lightbox to accomodate any color of back round. So i came with the idea of using velcro. I’ve glued (and tacked) one long stripe on each end of the box, this way it can hold either fabric, a rounded cardboard, or just about anything i want, in any color.
Just sew the soft velcro side on the fabric (that was done by my sister in all fairness), and apply to the back panel.
Cover and lighting
A white fabric piece makes up the top and side walls of the lightbox, allowing light to pass through.
I’ve also bought two cheapish lamps (identical) that have the nice feature of being totally poseable thanks to a fully articulated neck.
The finished product
The end result
To conlude, i present you some of the pictures i took using my new lightbox. You can also visit my Flickr page if you’d like to see all of them.
I found Etsy a couple months ago, purely by accident, through Twitter. It’s on this amazing marketplace of handmade craft and jewelery that i met with Martha Ivanovska, commonly known as @martice. Upon seeing her work, and being a total Moleskine addict, i thought how cool would it be to have such a sleeve to protect my cherished sketchbooks.
Well it turns out she actually made me one, with custom colors to match this very website! I will say that i am very pleased with her service overall, shipping was fast and the product itself is spotless. You can see for yourself on the pictures i took below.
Yes you can even hold your pen or whatever you use for drawing with the little elastic band, and it holds pretty good. Will have to see how it behaves over time. Mine also sports my logo, printed and sewed to match the look of my website header.
I will most certainly do business again with her, and i recommend you do the same if you want a sleeve like this one, or for your macbook. She take custom requests.
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Welcome to my website. This is my first post. I decided to edit it, then i will start blogging.
There is not much to see right now, but i will add content over time, you probably noticed a tutorial and freebie section on the menu up there. This blog will focus mainly on industrial design. My goal is to provide you with tutorials and free 3D files so you can perfect your cad skills over time. I use Solidworks.
Of course i have so many more interests and skillsets, so to add a little variety, you can expect webdesign, graphic design, and all kind of geek related articles.
So for now you can follow me on twitter, if you don’t already, by clicking on the little birdy in the top right corner. And content will arrive very soon.
Image source
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