Living Hinge D&D Boxes

[polarbrainfreeze]

The living hinge will basically only be glued on the bottom. On the top, it is held down by a little piece on top that rotates (once the hardware is in place).

You can see some pictures of my original design here:

Dice Box

[choughton]

How about lasering a little piece of foam, so your figurine doesn’t bounce around. Friction fit to lock into place. Maybe in Ferrari red or Hermes orange.

[Jules]

Ooooh! Ahhhhh!

[cynd11]

Very nice–a true high quality design!

[joker]

Awesome design! I would like to make something like that to hold my Magic cards, much classier than a little cardboard box…

[polarbrainfreeze]

I had started a design for a MTG card box a few years back. It’s at:

Magic The Gathering Card Box

[ptodd]

These look really nice! Seems like proofgrade will more than likely win this household over. Will have to look for a design to work one up for my son-in-law.

[jsc]

Just a quick question for you (or anyone else who has done a living hinge design): what spacing/line length are you using? I know there are a lot of parameters you can change that has different effects on the behavior, etc., but I just want to start with a known setting that other people have successfully used.

[Drea]

They’re phenomenal. Really, truly.

[bruceaulrich]

Whoa…awesome!

[Jules]

I just made one, and then modify it to fit whatever design I’m working on. The spacing on it was…hang on… 1.2678 mm, and I’ve sized that down and up as needed. Any smaller spacing than that and the ribs will start to break because you have to account for kerf removal. Net result is about 1 mm.

That’s for 1/8" thick material.

[AhnoldZ]

Here’s a couple of links that cover more info on living hinges.:

Living Hinges: An exploration in acrylic and plywood

Last year, after I finished what I could designing the matchbox, I was thinking about another project that would be practical and showcase the laser’s precision. I have this roll stamp case on my desk and while I don’t use stamps too often, the case does make a difference for keeping the stamps from getting messed up. [image] I had several different ideas and iterations, but never came up with a suitable design. I had to wait until I got the material to do this project. Since the case would b…

Beta project - seven (Acrylic Stacking Boxes with Living Hinge)

Next up… stacking boxes. I wanted to make these as storage for my wife who has never met a writing implement she does not like. I only made two for now, but eventually will make more. The goal was to make several shallow boxes that would each hold a reasonable handful of items, would stack on top of each other and ,most importantly, would be “roundy rectangles”. They also had to be cuttable from one sheet of the ⅛” thick acrylic I have. The size was a fairly big constraint, since I wanted th…

JKopel has posted a lot of stuff on living hinges (RHenley linked to another post of his above). He provided this great link:

Lattice Hinge Design — Minimum Bend Radius | DefProc

[polarbrainfreeze]

@choughton

How about lasering a little piece of foam, so your figurine doesn’t bounce around. Friction fit to lock into place. Maybe in Ferrari red or Hermes orange.

I loved this idea! I made a foam insert for the box (cut with the GF).

I think it looks awesome. AND it makes the living hinge more solid!

I did not have Ferrari red though.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[choughton]

Man, that looks great!!! I’m so impressed (and jealous).

[cynd11]

Oooooo, awesome idea! I predict many foam liners for living hinge boxes will be made after this.

[jamesdhatch]

@cynd11

I predict many foam liners for living hinge boxes will be made after this.

I’ve used the felt that you can get from Michaels with a sticky back. Just cut and then peel off the backing material and it sticks in place.

Dispatches from the front (Pre-release Report) - cutting felt

I’m making a living hinge glasses case using Proofgrade maple plywood. It will be lined with felt to keep from scratching the eyeglasses. Easy cutting the PG, but what settings do I use on felt? I’m using a self-adhesive craft felt from Michael’s. The stuff is 0.075" thick with a peel off liner on the back. Into the 'forge, load up my cut line test file and start testing. My cut line test file is simply a set of 2 lines, one vertical and one horizontal. If I want to cut a piece off material I …

Here’s the sunglass case it went into. It does give a nice backing to the living hinge.

Dispatches from the front (Pre-release Report) - Summer's coming edition

One of the things that lasers do really well is make very thin cuts in things. That makes something called a “living hinge” practical for all sorts of projects. Living hinges allow materials that don’t usually bend, curve or fold easily. One of the things that most amazes non-laser people is seeing things bending that ought not to. Putting those together is a marriage made in heaven and gives you a little extra “Wow!” to help explain why the wait for your Glowforge was worth it. Since the winte…

[rebecca]

I just love these boxes so much! There you go, firmly maintaining your status in the “super duper cool dad” category.

[polarbrainfreeze]

Just wait until you see what I’m working on now .

[rebecca]

WHAT?!! I can’t wait!!!

[carlosecheverri]

This looks wonderful. Congratulations on such a great design.