Sirrob01

My old cardboard box lightbox didn’t survive the big cleanup and was looking the worse for wear. I originally made it following the directions here, although a really good a cheap idea it does have it’s draw backs;

• Hard to store
• The sides are very fragile and after a few replacements the tape builds up
• If it gets damp/wet while outside the cardboard starts to disintegrate

So I had a thought to make a collapsible lightbox using magnets and corflute (the stuff house for sale signs are normally made of, plastic corrugated cardboard). It also meant I could build a slightly bigger box and have it semi damp proof and easy to store. The idea was to laminate the two pieces of cor-flute together for each side with tape and have a layer of baking paper/tissue paper between the layers. Then use magnets and nails to hold the whole thing together.

Started of with some white and blue cor-flute I had left over from another project (3mm stuff) and cut out 10 squares 15inchs x 15inchs ( I didn’t quiet have enough white and had to use two smaller pieces to cover the bottom):

After cutting out all the squares it was time to cut the middles out I left a border of 1.5inchs around the outside and then cut the middles out off 2 of the blue pieces and 4 of the white (yes oops 🙂 ).

Next up was to tape a piece of baking paper across the square hole, I did a piece of tape at each corner and piece halfway along. Then a taped the white and blue pieces together by taping each of the long sides together. I oriented each piece of cor-flute so the flutes ran at 90 degrees to each other for added strength:

Once I had the top, back and bottom built it was time to try and fit it all together. Down 2 rows of flutes on each wall I pushed some nails (big ones), then using some magnets I had laying around I held the whole thing together:

Hmm, it worked and it wont fall apart if I bump it while putting things in and out but I definitely need some slightly stronger magnets. I’d say at a guess about twice the size or twice the strength or a little of both. It takes about 1-2mins to assemble and a little longer to pull apart, I’ll keep my eye’s open for some cheap stronger magnets and try those in the future for now I’ll call this a prototype and work on it again once I source those magnets.

Anyways I’ll go back to working on the dragonfly now ;).