Jersey Shadowbox Display Case

Mission - Make a shadowbox that is functional and could be used to display some of my jerseys

A lot of the nice larger shadowboxes I was looking at to display my jerseys were pretty expensive (around $150) so I thought I could just make my own and have it be way more affordable. It ended up being only about $45 of materials so I'd consider the project a huge win. Mine or yours may not be perfect like the factory-produced ones in the stores, but you can also be proud that you made it and acknowledge the imperfections in something handmade. I'll also give more insight along the way on how I would change things to produce a better end product now that I've done it.

When gathering your supplies it is very important to make sure that you get the plastic/glass LAST. The dimensions of your shadowbox may not be the same as the mockup so you don't want to force something in that's too big or have something that is too small. I also got my plastic from a local company so I won't provide the link to avoid confusion. It's super easy to find somewhere near you just give them the dimensions you need, and the type of plastic, and then pick it up. With that being said here are the materials:

Wood: 1 in X 4 in X 10 ft Primed Baseboard - LINK

Plastic: Clear Acrylic 1/8 in X 21.25 in X 29.25 in **WAIT UNTIL WOOD IS ASSEMBLED

Black Felt - Just 1 Yard of Felt - LINK

Black Hook and Eye Latch (2 latches) - LINK

2 Black 2in Utility Hinges (1 pack) - LINK

Wood Backing Piece - LINK

Wood glue

Spray Adhesive (All Surface Strength)

Wood Paint/Primer of your choice

(10) 1.5-inch Exterior Durability Wood Screws

You probably don't have to do this unless you want to change the dimensions of anything, but having separate parts and the assembly is very helpful in the process of making the shadowbox. I referred to the dimensions and construction of the CAD a lot throughout the process. I put all the Solidworks files here should you need them.

Once you have your wood we need to rip the board at 1.5 inches wide on a table saw.

Now you should have two boards with dimensions: 1 in X 1.5 in X 10 ft and 1 in X 2.5 in X 10 ft

Put the 1 in X 2.5 in X 8 ft board aside for now, but we will need it later.

Take your 1 in X 1.5 in X 10 ft board that you just ripped and measure out the dimensions for the frame pieces.

You'll end up using this entire board because we are cutting it at a rough length (leaving extra) in case we mess up the angled cuts in the next step.

Across your 10 ft board mark out two 26-inch pieces and two 34-inch pieces. This way you have two inches to spare on each piece.

Now that we have those pieces cut to a rough length we can make our angled cuts to finalize the length.

**Remember that we have two extra inches on the board. With that being said, mark 1 inch inward on each side of the pieces. Once you've done that set up your miter saw to 45 degrees to make the angled cut (45+45=90 which gives us a symmetrical and flush finish).

Now all you have to do is make your angled cut on each side.

You should have two of each board and the final dimensions should be: 1 in X 1.5 in X 24 in (2ft) and 1 in X 1.5 in X 32 in

This step is pretty simple. All we are going to do is go to the router and make sure we have a bit in the router that's going to give us a nice rounded edge (filet). Push the wall of the router back until you get a 0.2-inch radius filet.

This step is probably the most important. The hard part of this process is making sure the board stays against the wall and the table so the slot is straight and has the correct depth. Make sure your table saw blade is at 90 degrees (perpendicular) to the table. If your slots are even a degree off it's going to be hard to get the plastic in. Also, make sure that your table saw height remains at 0.35 inches from the table. A fluctuation in height between the pieces is also going to lead to difficulties getting the plastic to fit. The slot is going to be 1/8 inch thick when you're done. You only need to run it through twice since the width of the table saw blade is 1/16 inch. You might be thinking: wait isn't the plastic 1/8 inch thick? Will it fit? Yes. We'll be sanding all of the wood a good bit which will take off enough wood to where the plastic fits nice and snug. To cut the slot, once everything is set up correctly, put the table saw wall 1/8 inch away from the non-filted side. Run the wood through then move the table saw wall in to cut the rest of the slot.

This is the last cutting process with our front frame pieces and to be honest it's a little intimidating. We need to make sure the height of the blade is going to clear our wood a little bit so it actually makes the cut. Next, we need to tilt the table saw blade 10 degrees away from the table saw wall. That's it for the setup, now just run the wood, keeping it against the wall, to make the angled cut.

This step is super easy. All we're going to do is sand our wood thoroughly and make sure it's nice and soft/smooth. Since the baseboard is already pretty soft I wouldn't do any grit below 400. If you start at 400 you can go up until its as smooth as you would like but I stopped at 600.

This comes down to personal preference of the color you want your frame to be. I wanted black so I went with simple black paint after priming the wood. Priming the wood with wood primer ensures the paint doesn't seep into the wood and overall it shows a lot better.

For assembly, we are going to grab a long piece and a short piece. What I recommend doing is finding a corner (90 Degrees). Your long and short pieces are complementary and should fit nice and flush in that 90-degree corner of a room. After applying a conservative amount of wood glue on one long side and one short side push them tightly into that corner and hold pressure. Follow the directions on your wood glue for the drying process because every bottle is different! Once you have an L-shaped piece (1 long and 1 short) we want to glue the other long piece to it to make a U-shape. Leave out the other short piece for now because we still need to get the plastic in there.

This backing frame is super easy compared to what we've done so far. It's the same process ripping it on the table saw and mitering it because they're going to be the same lengths as the front frame. Refer to the Solidworks parts if there's any confusion.

**The only difference with these is that we are not doing any angled cuts or filets. They are also going to be ripped on the table saw at 2 inches wide NOT 1.5 inches like the font frame.

Once your pieces are ripped and mitered paint them as you'd like.

Instead of using glue on these all we're going to do is use 8 of the 10 wood screws we have. We are going to screw these back pieces together pretty much making the shape of our front frame without all the fancy cuts. They should fit on the back of our front frame with the same dimensions.

By now your front frame should be dry and super sturdy. If everything was done correctly everything should be flush and you should be able to order the plastic with the same dimensions as the solidworks part. Although, if you're not so confident measure the dimensions of your pieces and write them down so you can order the right size plastic.

While your plastic is being cut we can start working on the backing piece. Take our thin plywood and cut it to the dimensions of our backing frame. **Measure just to be sure.

Once the plywood is cut lay it on the felt and cut it so each side of the felt is 2 inches from the plywood. This allows us to wrap it around the wood.

Now just follow the directions on your spray adhesive and glue the two together! My back looks a little messy but I don't mind since that's going to be facing a wall all the time.

This step is pretty quick and simple. Lay your backing on top of the back frame so each side is lined up. Now using the two wood screws we have left, attach the plywood to the back frame. I recommend putting the screws across from each other (left and right side).

We should have our plastic now and since we're awesome it should slide into our U-shape frame perfectly. Now all we need to do is get that last short piece on. Following the same process with the glue, assemble the last piece (with the plastic in the frame).

All we need to do now is attach the back to the front and add our hook and eye latch. The latches that will attach the fonr and back are going to be screwed in. The back of the latches should have wood screws with it. Make sure we mark where we are going to put the latch with a soft pencil mark and use pilot holes. Pilot holes will allow the screw to go in flush and not split our wood. The placement of the latches I'll leave up to you.

The hook and eye latch is super easy. Use pilot holes where you want them to go then you should be able to twist them in by hand. You can see in the second picture my pilot hole didn't go deep enough and split my wood. I had to paint over that part again and it doesn't look too great.