My HP Quidditch Trunk [Completed]

[Monkey540]

Hello again,

I have been wanting to make a full quidditch trunk for some time.
I have noticed from other builds there was minimal details on actually building the box, and I wanted to give a full process as I see a lot of questions about this, as well as some things I've figured out on my own. I hope it helps anyone working on their own.

Here's a look at the completed trunk:

Here's the full story

A few years ago I started by making my own beater bats, see the build here:

Harry Potter Quidditch Beater's Bat Replica

Hey everyone, I just started a new build and I'm really quite excited about how it's turning out. I managed to work out a design for the beater's bat with some help from friends, and rather than fully 3D print it, I decided I'd try to make it a wooden bat. Naturally, I started with a 3D model...

www.therpf.com

But then I didn't continue. Finally, last year, I entered my golden snitch in a prop replica contest here in Edmonton, and I won best Novice Maker (never won an award category)

That build thread can be found here:

Harry Potter - Golden Snitch - DH version, Opening snitch modelling

Hey there everyone. I was keeping this project to myself, but thought I might be able to get some good input on it if I share it with everyone, so here we go. It's been a dream of mine to have a working opening replica of the golden snitch such as the one seen in DH. As seen in the photo...

www.therpf.com

This has motivated me to revisit this project and see it through to enter in this years competition.

This will be my build from (almost) scratch.

I started as I usually do, but 3D modelling the project to try and get some rough bearings on how I'm going to do this and came up with this design sized from the Universal Studios Quaffle that I own.

This is designed to have a thickness of 1" lumber so I can utilize 1" x ? whitewood to build it.

To go along with this design, I generated a technical drawing to start ordering my material.

This project will involve a lot of firsts for me, but I think I'm much more prepared now than I was 5 years ago.

 

[Monkey540]

June's task for me was to build the base of the box.

I started by picking up the wood I needed, and cut the pieces to size.
I picked up some styrofoam balls that I will make into bludgers, and some metal bowls from the dollar store.

After cutting the 6 pieces I needed for the box, I laid out the bowl positions to get ready to cut the holes for the balls.

I proceeded to drill some holes and then cut out the holes with my jigsaw:

After this dry assembly, I decided I wanted to assemble this with dowels and glue to avoid any nail heads on the outer surface.
Not having Dowel pin center points or an awl, I ended up marking the holes the hard way with tape transfer. I highly recommend just getting some center points (I did after I finished).

Eventually, I was able to fully assemble my box bottom.

With this dry fit complete, next step was to work on the locking mechanism.

 

[Monkey540]

It was very important to me to have a functional lock on the trunk, so I gathered the materials I felt I could make work.

Lock and key from Amazon

Hinges, latch and catch from Lowes

And here's how I did it, I drilled two holes in the latch, installed the catch (U-piece), and slimmed one side of the locking mechanism to fit inside the gap of the catch with my rotary tool. I was very happy with this solution.

After the proof of concept, I cut the holes into my box piece.

I then decided to paint the interior before assembly, as I didn't want to risk painting on the wood to be stained.

It was then time to start gluing:

And the box was assembled and set to dry.

 

[JamesM242]

Looking good!

 

[Monkey540]

Looking good!

Thank you, here comes some more progress

 

[Monkey540]

After the glue had dried, I found that my wood wasn't super square.

So I applied some filler and sanding:

Now I was ready for some stain 2 coats and a clear coat later I was here:

Then I filled the holes in the latch with wood putty, sanded it and painted it along with the hinges and a lid stay I picked up:

And with a dry fit of the latch locked in place, I had completed my June goal, the bottom box was assembled and ready for exterior paint.

I noticed that the lip of the center bowl was a bit thick, so I clipped it off and smoothed it a bit with my rotary tool:

And then I painted the bowl a bit for now:

 

[Monkey540]

Next was my July goal, to build the lid of the trunk. But I didn't have the facilities to do this. So, I went down to my local makerspace ENTS: Makerspace - Join Edmonton's Original Makerspace

I've worked at the ENTS wood shop many times in the past, and specifically when I made my beater bats so I knew I'd have access to the tools I needed. Plus the people there are great and always willing to help when you ask if they are able.

While I got my material together, I decided to take a stab at modelling the front plate and the bludger pieces for 3D printing.

The front plate was simple and I came up with this design:

After printing, I discovered that my holes were too far apart. This part of the design is very specific to the holes made for the latch and lock.

The next part was the Bludger Collar Rings. From screen grabs it's very difficult to see how the latch actually works, but from some reference I found from the Studio Tour, I was able to model up a facimile, that I'm quite happy with.

This is the first time I've modelled something with assembled parts pre-assembled. I hope it's still printable and I look forward to hearing from my printer if it's good to go.

Finally, the top part that holds in the bludgers. I decided to make all the pieces for this one look the same way as the one from the film has a piece locked into the chains, so I have 3 hooks instead of 2 hooks and a loop.

Ok, back to some building,

I went down to ENTS to do some work, after setting the table saw to 2.5 degrees I ripped the 1" x 2" pieces for the lid section.

I discovered that I put the stop a little too close, so not much material was cut off the other side, but I don't think it will matter too much.

I used a little trick to get my sides the same, if you don't know this trick it's great to know and it really helped me. If you put masking tape on both your inside pieces, and then superglue the tape surfaces together, you will have one large block, then you can cut your shape, and when you split it apart, there is no damage to the wood and both profiles are identical:

Next thing I did was to make a jig for holding my glued pieces together. I learned about this from a great you tube video on this subject.

This is my jig, made entirely from scrap wood.

Yesterday I started the gluing process, so I stapled some end pieces on the jig so the pieces wouldn't slide off

And covered the contact surfaces with masking tape so it doesn't glue to my lid pieces:

I proceeded to start gluing:

Once all the pieces were together I strapped the pieces in shape to let the glue cure.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to make my July goal, but I'm hopeful that I will at least have it assembled by the end of July.

 

[skeplin]

Fantastic work! What program did you use to design your bludger plates and collar rings? Did you print them out of PLA? Any issues with them being too brittle?

 

[Monkey540]

Fantastic work! What program did you use to design your bludger plates and collar rings? Did you print them out of PLA? Any issues with them being too brittle?

I modeled them in Solidworks. I don't have my own printer, so I'm waiting for word that they were completed. I will definitely post about it when I have them in hand. We are trying to print them in pla.

I know that my print guy was a but concerned about the support structure.

 

[Monkey540]

Yesterday I went at the lid with my sander, and got the top nice and smooth, and got the inside as close as I could.

Before:

After:

Ready to cut to size and begin assembly.

 

[goldcylon]

Coming along nicely

 

[JamesM242]

I like the jig technique!

 

[Monkey540]

Yesterday I went in to finish up some shapes for my lid back at ENTS. I cut the lid to proper width with a crosscut sled, then I cut the long dimension to the needed size.

I also did a small amount of scraping/plane work to the inside curve to even it out a bit and resanded.

Then I ripped the long pieces for the vertical at an approx measured angle:

When this was done, I prepared more doweling and dry fit the frame of the lid.
Next up is gluing the frame and then doweling the lid in place.

It's really taking shape now.

 

[Monkey540]

Over the week/weekend, I glued the base together:

Then I made a little marker piece so I could line up my dowels better on the curve.

After the glue had dried, I cut off the tops of the dowels, and sanded the whole box down.

Then I cut the inset for the lid and glued that in place:

Then it was time for some filling and sanding again:

Finally time for some stain, after 2 coats I was here:

After that dried a bunch, I painted the inside green:

Tonite and tomorrow nite I'll be doing some clear coats, and then I'll finally be ready to attach it to the bottom of the box, and finish my July goal.

 

[Monkey540]

After 2 coats of clear, I thought the lid was ready to go:

Here's the initial assembly with the lock and hinge:

Yesterday, I drilled out the rivet for the lid stays I picked up which were these:

I took a stab at the bludgers, but messed them up completely, so I'll likely be modelling them how I want them.

After intalling the stays and handles, I had to take a couple of pics, here you go:

I have the straps, and then just painting and 3d printing stuff left, AND I'll say that I met my July goal

 

[Monkey540]

Been working on painting for a bit

Then more detail painting:

Almost done the lid details, picked up the metal for the straps and hopefully going to do them up this week. getting closer to the finish line

 

[Monkey540]

I got almost all the lid painting finished except for a bit of lining, and the teardrop feature in the corners of the diamonds.

I also did some sketches for the house crest images for the colored diamonds:

Not sure if I'm going to paint them or just get them vinyl cut.

I additionally did some sketches for the inside crests from this reference:

Then I went down to ENTS again to get some work done.
I used their laser cutter to engrave the crest details on some small wood pieces:

I also did work on the metal strapping. I picked up some 1" x 15" 16 GA strips of sheetmetal to match the dimensions of the latch, and started working on the taper feature for the strap on the bench grinder:

Then used their drill and break to drill a few holes and bend the straps to shape. The material was soft enough to bend the lid curve by hand.

Heres a shot of after grinding, then drilling and then forming to see the progression:

After these were formed, I installed them on the box for now as a test fitting, I think they turned out great:

 

[TerranCmdr]

Wow! Fantastic work. That is really coming together.

 

[Monkey540]

Wow! Fantastic work. That is really coming together.

Thank you very much. Yup it's winding down. Just a bunch more paint and the 3D printing stuff. I'm hoping a number of printing stuff will be ready for me next week. My printing guy said he'll try to make it a priority.

I also need to model my bludgers, but getting close to finishing.

 

[Monkey540]

After a bunch of time painting this weekend and this week, I managed to complete the exterior painting. Maybe needs some touchup and sealing and then aging but it definitely took me a good 20 hours to paint all the box part.

Additionally, I modelled the snitch compartment and sent the models off to be printed:

And, I put together a universal half a bludger model. 2 can be connected to make a full bludger.

Going to be cutting/sanding the inside crests to size tonight, and then I'm ready to map out the inside snitch compartment piece and hopefully get the prints of my 3D parts fully printed.