Firefly: The Game - Prop Box

aeryn

Well-Known Member
Update 8/21 - Ship tray start! And inquiry....

My hubby and I are making a kick-arse box for our Firefly game that HAPPENS to be filled with all sorts of goodies and props as the components holders.

First up? Card deck holders.

These are the furthest along, so I figure I'd show them off first. Those who have played the game, and especially with all the expansions, know that it gets unmanageable how many decks of cards there are. Not only do you need all the decks of cards easily accessible, but their discards as well. I designed a hinged card deck holder in Sketchup and printed them out on our Taz5 printer in eSun PLA+.

Fun story! Did you know that printer filament is susceptible to humidity? We live in colorado in what's technically a high-desert climate, so rather low relative humidity. Until we had the wettest summer in the time we've had the printer and my poor filament started to soak it all up! 3 successive weird fails on a filament that we don't get weird fails on? Time to buy a pound of dessicant.

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3D Printing on the Taz5. It took 3 tries to get my prototype right. :) The back has to be glued into place, as printing-in-place yeilds too fragile of a part.

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Testing testing.... successful!

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Sandable primer-filler coat (this stuff is best!), filler (drywall putty), use up all the random mostly-empty black spray paints from around the house. Then, Ace-brand "Chrome Aluminum" paint. To be done: Weathering, rivets & adornments, and some sort of indicator as to WHAT is in each box.
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Food Stuffs Boxes - Token Holders

Our token holders are hollowed out food-stuffs boxes! I had found a file on Thingiverse, but I wanted a close-able box, and also, the file on thingiverse has the wrong characters in the alliance stamp. Oops! So, I rebuilt it in Sketchup (yes, that's my go-to modeling program for less-organic items). Couple of trial-and-error setups to get the lid to slide nice, but soon, printing on its way.

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Printed in eSun PLA+

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Used XTC-3D to fill in striations. Hubby didn't like how it softend up the edges (I was going a bit thick on my application), so we sanded back down on the belt sander, and I moved to the filler primer spray paint and drywall spackle.

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Sanded & spackled to fill in the gaps at the cap glue joint

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Filler primer!

Insides have been sprayed with a flat-black enamel. I'll coat the outsides in black too, before going to a bronzed metallic paint, then weathering.

Goal:
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Card Box Update

There! Looks like it belongs in a space western now. Something gathered from Whitefall, perhaps. Not sure how to label which cards go in here yet. This is for 3 of the supply planet cards.

A simple acrylic wash to grunge it up and make it look more like steel vs aluminum, then hot-fix-type rivets and a couple of label holders

I think I want to add some rust, though....

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Compared to an un-distressed box.


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Ship Tray Beginnings

Not super replica-y, but it's part of the kit. I started printing out my ship tray.

Each component detaches because a) it wouldn't fit on my printer and b) it will store better/flatter in parts. I used the Open Lock system to connect everything. For those unfamiliar, OpenLock has been developed as a scenery-part connection system for tabletop RPGs. It's pretty sweet. And open source. :)

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Sketchup model showing the parts together and separate.

I've gotten the right side components, the crew quarters, printed out.

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Connection / layout options

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OpenLock connectors

Once hubby is finished printing his Mon Cal cruiser for Armada, I'll get the main tray printing. That will hold the ship, a peice of laser cut plexi (eventually.....) and it's drive core and upgrades. The back part will have detatchable fins for easier storage, but is for jobs, money, and solid contacts. And techicnally, you can attach another one of the crew quarters slots to the other side, too. Or four. Whatever. It's modular.

Each tray assembly will take about 650g of filament ($16+, depending on your filament costs), and pushing 34hrs of printing on our Taz5. YEESH. And to think I want 4 of them....

Unfortunately, I don't think molding and casting them will yield any savings in money, or much in time (especially after figuring out how to cast the open lock insets). Unless you brilliant folks have an idea.

I am stuck, though, on how to make this look more 'Verse-like. Physical detailing is hard, because I don't have a lot of edges to work with. Best I can think of is paint and weathering? Or I can be lazy and leave them black. Thoughts?
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Awesome work! I am looking forward to seeing the complete set of organizers. My wife and I love the game, but like you mentioned, it can get a bit on the "unwieldy" side! Do you have any plans on sharing your stl files? If so I would be interested in trying them on my printer as well.
 
Your attachments in the last post aren't working :(

Fixed now!

And another update. Got all my ship trays components printed!
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Eventually I'll add a plexi topper to the ship card itself, custom lazer cut per card so that fuel and parts and people and cargo won't slide about.

I think I'm going to figure out how to mold and cast them with the deep undercut side connectors in place. I saw Volpin Props do a sweet mold that had a detached component for his Aloy bow. So I'd remove the casting WITH the undercut silicone, then remove those parts that shape my connection cavities. They're short enough I won't need to support them, but deep enough they'll likely tear if I'm not crafty about it.

But, casting allows me to fix the flaws and slight warping in these, then not have to repeat that three more times. And I'd also learn a new casting technique. And I'd also get those other three done in the time it takes resin to cure. And I can mix in microballoons to make the finals lighter.

And, I can do cool colors / metallics much more easily.

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Awesome work! I am looking forward to seeing the complete set of organizers. My wife and I love the game, but like you mentioned, it can get a bit on the "unwieldy" side! Do you have any plans on sharing your stl files? If so I would be interested in trying them on my printer as well.

I do have plans to! Now that I've gotten the components all printed, and I'm OK with how they printed, I'll work on getting them available to download. These BARELY fit on my printer, so I'm thinking I may need to break them down to fit on others' printers. Those joins would probably be glue joins, though, not OpenLock joins.
 
Awesome, thank you so much for that! One of the things I love most about both the prop community and the 3d printing community is the level of sharing that goes on. Both of them are hobbies that you get into because you love doing it, and I feel like that shows through in the majority of the people in those communities. I am seriously looking forward to trying these out and wrangling the chaos a bit! Lol
 
Ship holding box complete! Mostly. May do a little more sanding or add sealer to the basswood.

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Replica Cigar box from Washosaurus on Etsy.


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Strawberries! These were hacked up and glued to a removeable tray.


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Strawberries out, revealing the first layer of ships -- the Firefly class models.


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Lower deck holds the remaining ships.


I used a 1" hole saw to make the slots for the ships, and cut the trays to fit. The Tohuku class cruiser is too tall, so it's got a cut out that allows the upper deck to sit at a reasonable height and me still get the strawberry tray in.



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Tray Prep

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Strawberry Prep

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