Harry Potter's Hogwarts Library Book

I wanted to make a magic book that looked quite normal until it was opened!

Being magic it was obvious to me that a Hogwarts theme would be required

The vast majority of this build is Tinkercad files once the design is done you will need the following to make it real.

3D Filament printer and PLA filament

3D resin printer and water-washable resin

Laser printer

Paint

Clear laquer

Felt tip and paint pens

First surface polystyrene mirror

2 way acrylic mirror

LED string lights

Red LED and Blue LED lights

Magnetic switches, Normaly-closed

Magnet ( I used one 10mm x 5mm x 2mm)

Cardboard

5mm Foam board

M3 plastic standoffs and screws

Decoupage paper

Self adhesive book cloth for spine and hinging the covers

Thinned PVA adhesive

Gold paper labels

Clear laminating film

Gold wax

I had previously made an infinity mirror, and an idea started to form for a book with an infinity mirror inside its covers.

I started by finding some mirror offcuts from my previous build, and played with them in a pair of wooden stands to see what sort of gap between them would allow for a nice infinite look, I was surprised to find that 50mm between mirrors worked fine.

So the next decision was what would be infinitely repeated, how about library shelves full of books? It also gives me a nice play on words being a literal library book:)

As it would be magical it would need to be Hogwarts related so a nice gothic design would seem to work well.

From experience, I knew that good lighting is important, I had purchased a couple of strings of tiny LED's connected to a pair of button cell batteries with an on-off switch. I liked the idea of a candle chandelier, so I set to twisting the wires about until something resembling a chandelier was created. When I mounted it onto a small piece of 5mm foam board I found it was just a little dim so I mounted up a couple of standard 5mm LED's connected to button cells to augment the light, I used one red and one blue and I like what it looks like.

Although the battery holders have an on-off switch I wanted to make sure that , when the book is closed, the lights will turn off. To that end, I decided to use a pair of normally closed magnetic switches.

To facilitate easy battery replacement, I connected them through a 3 way plug and socket with the negative of the 2 battery holders commoned up. As the wires from the battery holders do not have any polarity markings you will need a meter to work out the correct way the wires will connect. The wiring diagram shows the very basic circuit,

In Tinkercad I designed the whole book in one file to start with, and I then split it into individual parts.

The page block is made of 2 parts held together with M3 plastic standoff,s used as inserts, and screws. There is a 5mm wide slot at the top to slide in the lights. There is a recess front and back for the mirrors. Slots at the front are to hold the magnetic switches, there is a large cavity for the wiring and battery holders. A recess on the front face is for a Gothic door front piece. There are another pair of inserts to hold the back cover closed with screws ( I am thinking that a book clasp may attach here at some point).

Unless otherwise stated, these prints are PLA filament prints.

From the first book file I then created files for the following parts:-:

Front cover

Back cover

Spine

Frontpiece

I have linked to the "All parts of book file" to get all the parts as individual files in Tinkercad use "duplicate", then delete all but one part of the book and rename it. repeat until you have all of them in a printable form.

The internal parts for resin printing are also linked.

For the library, I needed some bookshelves and for a Gothic look I designed an arch to link them together; these were resin printed. I had two tries at this, the first, narrow shelves, just did not look right, not enough books so I printed some twice the width. the arch and the shelves were joined together on a piece of thin card, the same size as the back mirror so that the mirror holds it in place.

This assembly was spray painted with grey primer and then the books were individually touched in with permanent markers and acrylic paint.

On the subject of mirrors, you can see that I have doubled the number of mirrors for infinity on two axes.

The side front surface mirrors but up against the bookshelves doubling their width and go on to infinity :)

The main assembly of lights and mirrors was switched on, tested and found to be good!

The exterior of the book at this stage is as 3D printed so I set to making it look more old booklike.

The three sides that represent the pages were treated to a coating of gold wax paste and once dry I gave it a quick coat of Matte clear lacquer. I have to say that being a filament print the layering makes it look very much like pages.

The arched doorway front piece was given a coat of grey primer and then lacquered. I discovered that when the internal lighting was on it showed through the front piece so I sprayed the back surface with matt black paint.

I had two tries at the covering, my first attempt was using the thinest faux leather I could find, when I had cut it out, laser printed it and stuck it to the covers and spine I decided I didn't like it so I started again!

New front and back covers and spine were filament printed, the magnet for the switches was superglued in place and I tried my hand at Decoupage, sticking torn up strips of pre-printed tissue like paper to the surface using watered-down PVA glue. once both covers were covered and dry I sprayed them with matte clear lacquer.

To print the cover and spine I used my very small laser printer which is why all my artwork is in separate pieces, a large printer could do the cover at one go.

The printer was used to cut the design into a gold coloured paper sticky label which was already stuck to the the cover which, once printed and the excess gold paper was carefully peeled off, was protected with a clear laminate sheet. The pictures are of my first attempt on the faux leather, I seem to have forgotten to photograph the lasering of the replacement covers.

Before final assembly I printed a couple of fly sheets, on buff coloured heavy paper, for a bit of realism, these were cut to size, folded and glued inside the front cover. The second sheet had a print on white paper of the library door picture stuck on to match it with the open door it would reveal.

Strips of self-adhesive book cloth were stuck to the covers and attached to the main part of the book, then the spine was covered in book cloth attaching it to the front and back covers. Gold coloured corners were glued in place on front and back covers

The spine printing was done on a strip of book cloth, laminated and stuck in place.

I took the book into work with me and left it on a table in front of our library shelves, it wasn't long until I heard a buzz of excitement and surprise! It is the unexpectedness of what looks to be just a book "about magic" that, when opened, proves to be magic!