This year for Valentine’s Day my daughter wanted to do a “Gumball Machine Box”. So my wife bought a plastic fish bowl and turned it upside-down. She planned to tape it to the box and fill it with little colorful pom-poms.
Then I open my dumb mouth and said, “why don’t I just make it work and we can put real gumballs in it?”
Here was the result (and it does actually work):
The mechanism that catches the balls is simply a gear that rotates and has room to hold six balls.
As the gear turns there is a single hole in the bottom for a gumball to fall out.
Then I just inserted a slide to catch the falling ball and have it exit out the front.
My youngest daughter simply wanted a Pikachu box. So that was easily done in a single night. (Paper cut on the
Fun times. I may end up making a more permanent base for the gumball machine eventually, but right now my daughter loves it.
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Absolutely love these! What an awesome dad you are! That gumball machine is fantastic!
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rvogt
February 14, 2023, 3:00pm
3
That gumball one is just wow!! Great job on both!
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ekla
February 14, 2023, 3:41pm
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What a great dad! That gumball machine is catalog material, don’t you think?
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It would be tough, it is designed for a specific plastic fish bowl and box size.
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arh2
February 14, 2023, 3:53pm
7
Family asks and you provide! Do the gum balls taste slightly of pg draft board? Enquiring minds want to know…
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LOL
That was a concern I had, but no, they taste fine. No burnt smell or flavor transfered.
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Xabbess
February 14, 2023, 4:10pm
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bill.m.davis:
my daughter loves it
So do I! Now, I want one. Very cute and cool.
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But could you submit the gear mechanism with something like a 5" sq box and maybe use a mason jar? Everyone has access to mason jars.
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That would be interesting… Maybe I could try that. Jar openings are fairly consistent, I think?
And it would be smaller. But that might make it more difficult too…
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Mason jars are standard regardless of brand, and have two sizes, “regular” and “wide-mouth.” Wide mouth would probably be easier and have much bigger openings. The jars themselves come in different sizes, from half-pint to gallon, but the mouth sizes are the same two sizes regardless of the size of jar.
If you need a “tester,” I’d be happy to help!
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ptodd
February 14, 2023, 11:24pm
14
Who wouldn’t love a gum ball machine?! Very fun project. Also, the Pikachu is adorable.
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My wife said she was going to take the gumball machine and keep it on her desk at work. My daughter said, “But it is mine!”
I just laughed. I will let them determine what happens with it now.
I probably do need to make at least one more…
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Wow! Is that the first GF gum-ball machine? That is cool!
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I would be surprised if it was first. I thought I heard of someone else doing one once.
Yep, here is one from 2015:
I wanted to make a gumball machine, so I made one on the weekend:
[image]
You turn the big gear and gumballs come out of the hole at the bottom. It’s made of 1/4" mdf sealed with beeswax to make it food-safe. The top is 1/4 acrylic.
I did make videos capturing the design phase. I’ll post them to my youTube channel once I have them edited.
As always, you can see more of my stuff on my blog at: http://polarbrainfreezethecut.blogspot.ca/
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LauraZM
February 17, 2023, 5:50pm
20
These are great! Those are some very lucky kids.
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and then just taped to a box covered in yellow paper.)
