Finally, we made the plastic box that the cube sits in. The box comes as a series of five plastic, pre-cut sheets which are covered in a semi-sticky paper. The edges of the sheets were cut with edges of a simple interlocking tongue-and-groove style. There was no clue as to what the sheets were made of.
Having spoken to our local model shop, we bought a small bottle of 'EMA Plastic Weld' (Dichloromethane) to stick the box together. This is a solvent which 'wicks' into the joints between the mating surfaces of the plastic by capillary action and 'melts' the plastic, allowing to pieces to stick together. It then quickly evaporates.
This is what we did:
- We checked that the sheets fitted together to form a box. We kept the sheets 'in order' so that we knew that they would go together.
- We washed our hands so that we had no grease on them that would cause problems for the solvent we were going to use.
- We removed the paper covering from the plastic sheets.
- We assembled the box. This took two pairs of hands!
- We got a small 'No. 2' paintbrush, dipped it in the solvent and then ran the brush along the upper seams of the box. Having done this we held the joint together for around 30 seconds to allow it to 'set'.
- Having done all four of the top joints, we then VERY CAREFULLY turned the box onto each one of its side in turn, again dipping the brush into the solvent and running it along the seam.
One small point to note is that (conveniently) the plastic box actually sits on the printed circuit board, so it's easy to connect it to the power/computer, etc.
If you decide to make one of these cubes yourselves we hope you had as much fun as we did!
