lightsaber display stand

Problem

Important birthday coming up... limited time... it's the perfect time for a handmade gift!

Objective

To design and fabricate a special, handmade gift for the birthday person in 1 week.

Skills Employed

• Onshape 3D CAD model
• Water jetting
• Laser Cutting
• Sheet Metal Bending Brake
• Vertical Bandsaw

Approach

• To create an Onshape 3D CAD model of the overall design, dimensions, and assembly.
• Metal Components:
• The sheet metal stock was a bit large for the water jet bed, so the verical bandsa was used to cut it to a smaller length and also required a two part waterjet cut process!
• The water jet was used to cut out sheet metal into bracket shapes. Then the metal brackets were bent to the desired shape using the sheet metal brake.
• All of the edges of metal components were sanded and smoothed to create duller edges. Scotch Brite pads were used to "polish" the surface of the metal pieces. And lastly, WD-40 was sprayed onto the metal components for corrosion protection.
• Acrylic Light Box:
• A hinge was used to create a "removeable" backing to enable access to the LEDs within the box (in case there are any issues that need to be fixed after assembly).
• White acrylic was used for one side of the lightbox which allows for some light to shine through. Black acrylic was used for all 5 other box sides to block light from shining through.
• The acrylic pieces were laser cut and assembled using acylic adhesive.
• Lastly, the display was assembled with screws and nuts.

Results

The gift was successfully made and the birthday person was very appreciative! If I were to do this again, I would have allocated more time for this project, would have brainstormed ideas earlier, and would have worked on the design portion a bit more before prototyping.