Geared Glasses Box

My goal was to build a glasses box to replace the old one I used to have. The first constraint was to build something that is durable enough for every day use. This box is sized for small glasses. Plastic glasses are most of the time to big to fit in.

I used 3mm plywood, a set of four 3x3mm cylindrical magnets and some 3mm wooden stick. I tried bamboo skewer but found beech sticks instead an some glue and varnish of course.

The first step was to validate if a simple 3mm plywood box who be durable enough for my everyday use. I build up a box using a box generator on the web. It was meant to have a flexible lid that unsurprisingly broke very quickly. It also appeared that the flexible pattern generated was unsuited for such a small box. The box itself ended as sturdy enough so I kept on this track.

As I was thinking about a more personal designed, I had the idea of linking two doors by a gear. First because I like gears, second because it allows to open both door with a action on any of them.

I inserted cubic 3mm magnets to secure the door closed. The result was pretty robust but was lacking some elegance.

I had the idea to design asymmetrical doors. It allows bigger gears and better esthetics. I had a cut at the bottom of the bigger door to open it with the pressure of the thumb.

I dropped the cubic magnets because they didn't fitted with the curves of the new box design. I tried smaller cylindrical magnet but used disc shape 3x3mm magnet (the difference between a cylindrical and a disc is not clear to me but at least the shop selling them was making that difference.

My tests, drove me to enlarge doors dimensions to limit friction with the box, especially after varnishing them. With a full millimeter or gap between the box and the door, it is possible to place some metal washer between the two.

Axles are made of bamboo skewer. Since their diameter is varying a lot, I fixed them in my screwdriver drill and make it spinning between two layers of sand paper to reduce it to the right dimensions.

I finally found suitable beech sticks instead, which dimension are more precise and that are easier to cut clean, but is is much more difficult to source.

Since each curved corner is a quarter of a circle, I calculated the circumference of the corresponding circle, adding 1.5mm (half of the thickness of the plywood). It was not the right value since it gave me too much slack.

I did the calculation by adding 1mm only and it was much better. It gives some tension when building up the box which makes building pu much easier. The distance between each cut is bit above 1mm to make it a little sturdier than it was.

The bottom of the box broke after a few weeks of use. First I poorly glued one side of the bottom and glasses are repeatedly hitting the bottom of the box.

I didn't wanted to had a flat second bottom to make it very sturdy because it would make it bigger and I wanted the box to be as compact as possible. I Just glued some horseshoe pieces to have more surface to glue each part.

To build up the box I glued each piece one one side, checking that they are square and let dry. Then I glued the other part, especially flexible ones.

When glued, the box is sanded and varnished. I didn't put any material inside since the wood is much more soft that metal and glass.

Here are the file to cut the box for yourself.