Stereo Bank Model Kit
Stereo bank model kit is the latest design I made years ago that’s now available on SandboxRanch.com for purchase.
For this specific project, I used quarter inch MDF, which was just slightly thicker than quarter inch.
Although most of my model kits are interchangeable regarding being cut with a laser over a router with a few modifications, for this project I used my laser as this stereo bank model kit had many many inner sharp corners that were required for proper interlocking assembly.
This stereo bank model kit came-up when I was teaching myself how to design and I wanted a combination of secret storage areas and a bank, so every component of this has a storage area “hidden” in plain sight.
As I was laser cutting these from two sheets of quarter inch MDF, once one was done, I’d take the pieces out and throw the next sheet in my laser to make the finished SandboxRanch.com stereo bank model kit.
Banks can be customized however you like and even combined however you wish by SandboxRanch.com.
Laser cutting, unlike routering, doesn’t require any hold-down and the diameter of the cut is infinitely smaller, so it gives a lot more flexibility when it comes to smaller models with lots of details in them, but at the cost of speed.
Part of efficient material usage is using every clear area with nothing to make parts, and you can see that at full display in the image below, these are the speaker fronts.
There are also many shared lines that I took full advantage of when laser cutting out this stereo bank model kit for SandboxRanch.com by removing the repeated cut, meaning one cut would often cut out two parts – hence the tight nesting you see across the MDF sheet being performed.
Banks come in all sizes, shapes and materials, there are many different ways to make a bank, each has their cost and benefit.
You’ll notice that the laser is jumping around during the cutting process of this stereo bank model kit as well, that’s because many “lines” were cut when I removed double-lines for this SandboxRanch.com design.
The advantage of MDF over plywood, is that it paints very well and it’s very cost-effective verses just about any other material available, it also sands incredibly well and is easy for equipment though rough for router bits.
You might think it’s difficult to put together something with so many parts but it’s actually quite easy as many of the parts are duplicates, there are two identical speakers built using the same parts for instance and the other parts are distinctive enough that you know which goes where as that’s the only place it can go.
If you didn’t want to put any paint on your stereo bank model kit and just keep it as you see it, regardless of material, SandboxRanch.com can apply masking on both sides that you then remove which will also remove all the smoke stains along the cut edges.
Basically anything can be made into a bank, even a volcano… and this assembly process is a lot simpler and straight forward than this stereo bank kit.
After all the parts of this stereo bank model kit are finished being cut, the next step is to sort them all out, as there are really three models in this one model, the main stereo system and two identical speakers on both sides.
All the parts fit well into bins, so sorting is relatively straight forward and you can see in the image below, some of the inside parts are “stuck”, they pop right out, it’s just friction holding them there as they were cleanly cut through without issue.
The stereo bank model kit with all the inside parts removed and parts sorted looks a lot more manageable pretty quickly, distinctive parts really helps a lot when it comes to efficient assembly of model kits.
Before I use glue on this SandboxRanch.com stereo bank model kit, I always do a dry run to make sure I have all the parts and everything fits properly, if I have any issues, I’d re-cut the updated parts but generally, this isn’t required as everything cut perfectly and accurately.
This wasn’t the first bank I designed years back, here’s another one inspired by my environment back then, a TV bank!
Glue requires clamps, I have a lot of clamps in the shop but need more smaller ones for projects such as these as you can only glue as much as you have clamps to hold things together while it dries, so clamps are always a limiting factor for model assembly.
Assembly is pretty easy, as long as you take your time, glue doesn’t set for at least 10 to 15 minutes, though with MDF, it can be faster, so there is no rush to plow through this process.
The trickiest part of this stereo bank model kit glued-up assembly was the top part, you can see I used spacers to prevent the top from gluing to the stereo system record top, and it worked great!
Models made-up of multiple layers are a great way to add lots of “free detail”, as laser engraving costs more than cutting.
This will now sit on a shelf at SandboxRanch.com to remind me of my beginnings, it’s a fun design to put together though dated, as stereo systems like this are hard to come-by nowadays, but when I designed this stereo bank model kit, they were all the rage.
