Film Reel Picture Frame

I laser cut a picture frame, inspired by the look of a film reel.

The materials used were 1/8th inch thick plywood, white and grey paint, and a mallet.

For my final project, I wanted to make something that I would use in daily life. I am a very nostalgic person and have an array of picture frames on my desk, so I thought I might as well make one for the final. I have a photo strip of me and my best friends from high school just thrown in my drawer, so I wanted a proper way to store one of the photos. Once I set out to do a picture frame, I decided I didn't just want to do a simple box; I wanted it to have some stylization to it. This is when I came to the idea of the film reel. I have a film reel tattoo inspired by Taylor Swift's song This Is Me Trying. The exact lyric is "you're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town". As a film major who experiences major nostalgia, that lyric really spoke to me, and since a frame captures a moment in time, just like a film reel, I was inspired to base it on one.

Before I did any digital design, I measured the height and width of my intended photo so I could make sure I was using the right dimensions for my project. I created my inner box to be 3.9cm high and 5.2 cm wide (just slightly wider than my photo). Then I made my outer box 3.5 inches wide by 2.756 inches high. Then I set out to do my skinny rectangles inside the area between the two boxes. Their width is .6 inches and height .125 inches (to account for ply), going across, then going downward. I just flipped the width and height when moving from across to downward. Then I made sure to space them .153 inches from each other. I first created the top ones, then mirrored them to the bottom, then I created the left ones and mirrored them to the right. Also, by doing some simple math, I made sure they were evenly spaced apart from the outer and inner boxes. Then I made the left and right side sketches 2.756 inches in length and .4 inches wide. Then the top and bottom sketches were 3.898 inches wide and 2.57 inches in length. I made them slightly shorter than the side sections, because I wanted them to fit in between the spaces of the left and right side pieces. Then I had constructed my back piece. For the back piece, I was not sure how I wanted to incorporate it into the rest of the frame, but I decided on using a press fit technique. I then sought to just create a notch in the middle of my top, bottom left, and right pieces, then I would use it to slot my back piece into. After I made the cuts in my pieces, I made them .125 inches by .125 inches. I then created a square the size of the square that was organically created in the back of my project by the extrusion of my top, bottom, left, and right pieces. After that square was sketched, I drew the .125 inches by .125 inches squares on the sides of my larger square, making sure to project the square cutouts from the other pieces so I could just line them up on my back piece. Those were the steps I took for my final project, but I did have some failures in the middle of my project, which I will briefly touch on. At first, I was going to have a base that intersected at the bottom of the frame, and I even got so far as to laser cut it, but after talking to my instructors, it was deemed unnecessary. Then I also was originally going to make four frames in total and connect them to make more of a film reel strip, but I didn't have the time, and it also seemed like a lot of plywood, but I did get so far as to sketch them in Fusion, which you could see at the end of this segment of photos. Finally, every new piece I made a different component.

After everything was fully designed, it was time to laser cut! I came into the marketplace with high hopes, but the process was difficult. I first ran into problems even exporting my file, but they were eventually solved. Then, when I lasercut the first time, it came out massive, and nothing was piecing together. It was later realized that something was lost in the transition of measurements between programs, and so the scaling on everything was very enlarged, but not enlarged exactly to my dimensions; almost every width and height was off. So then, with the help of my instructors, I had recut the wood, and it came out to the right size and dimensions and I placed my photo in. However, even though I cut with a .5 kerf, the fit was a little tight, so I used a mallet to press together all of the pieces nicely.

Finally, after I had the picture frame finalized, I finished it off by painting it grey and white to match the aesthetic of a film reel. I originally was going to black instead of grey, but it felt too aggressive of a color choice.