Box With Locking Mechanism

The Lazer print I have made is a locking mechanism that involves gears. I made this box as it was a project of mine where I had to create a box, took quite a long time and many many trial and errors to get this box to work. So here is a full tutorial of the box I have created.

the CAD file is attached down below.

Materials used is a lazer printer, wood, and wood glue.

First, bring your design into AutoCAD. After printing these parts out you can begin to assemble these pieces and they should fit to turn into a box. But don't glue them just yet as we will still need to add the locking mechanism in the box.

The notches that you see here are what help keep the mechanisms in place. You will need around 4 of these.

Next, you will be needing the gears and the two circles. With these, you want to make a pattern that goes: Circle - Gear - Gear - Circle. Then you will insert the rods into the 2 small middle squares. You can see a difference but make sure they're not in the big squares as it will be for your key. Once finished assembling, put the circle through the 2nd wall of the box, should look somewhat like this.

With the slider (that should align with your gear) they are pieces that should be glued together. Make sure the notch/the open gap in the slider is facing the right.

Once finished assembling you can now put the front piece of the box and should fit perfectly.

As for the lid, we are going to create a notch that has 2 notches on both sides, with this it helps lock the slider in place so of course, it doesn't open the lid. This is a really important step for our locking mechanism.

The front and 2nd front pieces are similar to what we have in the actual box.

Next step is also one of the most important steps is making the notches. You want to have at least 4 big circles and 5 small circles. along with 2 rods for both sides. There are 2 of the notches, you want make sure that you have 3 long ones and then 2 short ones.

When assembling you want to make sure your pattern goes: 4 big circles - 5 small circles - 4 big cicles

Those long and short notches go in alternating order with long first

Make sure when putting them in, looking at the rectangles on the middle of the notches, you want to have the long when facing the left and the short one facing the right.

The key you can edit it to make it any shape you would like, but this is what it should look like in the end.

Hope this tutorial was easy to understand!