Sunday, March 10, 2013

Dollhouse Jukebox (2009)

 This is one of the coolest dollhouse projects I made this far.
It's a miniature jukebox.


The friend for which I made the torture devices for her dollhouse was part of an online group. At that group we had an online story. In that story we had a "magical" jukebox (thanks to me).
It would play random songs which were related to the actions going on, on that particular moment in the story.
For example: Someone wrote about her character making the same mistake twice. Then the jukebox would be playing "Oops, I did it again" from Britney Spears in that same story.
Because the setting was kinda dark and it was about werewolves, vampire and other night creatures, this jukebox got a bit of a dark look.

I started with a simple AutoCAD drawing, giving me some guidance about it's size.
Then I got my hands on a small mp3 speakerset (cost about 10 euro's). Offcourse I took it apart shortly after:


Now I knew the exact sizes I had to work with and I made the chest part of the jukebox.
It consisted of a front, back (with a door for the batteries, a hole for the on/off switch and a hole to plug an mp3 player into), 2 side parts (with holes for the speaker) and an arch for the top.
That arch was made by gluing +/- 3 U shaped pieces together.

The pieces of the chest. It still lacks the bottom and legs.
Note that the big U shape is used at the front.
 Everything is glued together and I used veneer from school to give the MDF wood a massive wooden structure.
The sides glued together and a small adding of veneer at the top.
After the chest was finished it was time to add the electronics:
Sideview of the speaker.
At the window I put the red led light from the
speakerset. It lights up when the speaker is turned on.
Offcourse I wouldn't be me, if I didn't add a bit too much detail to it.
So I added a few tiny CD's
I can't remember or see which I added to be honest. I know there is a CD of Kiss because my friend is fan of them. And I added a CD of Limp Bizkit. If I'm correct there is also a CD of Army of Lovers, Cher, Abba and Rick Asley. Since I used the worst of the worst types of CD's.
In The Netherlands we call them "Foute Muziek" (trans: Wrong Music). It's music you should, in normal circumstances, be ashamed singing them out loud even though everybody knows the lyrics. But at "Foute Parties" you should be ashamed not to sing with them.

The ring of CD's next to a 5 cent coin to show how small it is.
Top side. The ring goes around the LED light.

 For the speakers I made these gridded covers. And I used very tiny pieces of paper to make the list of songs. It was too tiny to add actual song names on them.
Speaker cover
Detailed view of the window.






To show how it all works I made this short video:

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