Photobooth Original Design & CNC

I am a French wedding photographer and to offer a pretty and design photobooth solution to my customer I just decided to build one !

When I see the time spent in the wedding decoration and flowers, I just don't wanted to install a DSLR camera on a tripod for the photobooth! I had to find a better idea so I started sketching and finally found a way to do this !

One of the biggest point was : everything must be very easy to set up and has to work on battery only ! (I want to offer the possibility to install the photobooth on a beach, in a field or wherever they wanted without any constraint !)

Step 1: Sketching and CNC

The design had to be smart and contemporary !

More than just goodlooking I had to find a way to integrate securely a DSLR, a remote trigger, a cobra flash with his external battery pack inside my box.

At the end my design was a bit to complex and I had not the woodworking skills to bend wood to make the round corners of the box. So after reading a lot of instructables and spent a lot of time googling through the web, I just decided I need to build my own CNC !

After a few month building this first CNC, I was able to cut my first parts in plywood !!!!

Step 2: Assembly

I added some pin holes in my design so I was able to stack easily all the layer together using wood glue. It was just great to build this puzzle together. Happy that this long hours designing and editing my CNC program were a success !!

Just be careful with gluing. Take your time, and verify the clamp you plan to use are big enough (was not my case !!!! I had to find a last minute solution....)

Some of the layers are bit different to offer the possibility to fix the 3D printed mounting parts for flash/dslr/batteries...

Step 3: Sanding

Before assembling the front and rear layer, I just rounded the edges with a router. It looks much better so !

I sanded the hole box using an orbital pneumatic sander I just bought for this job ! I was really pleased with the result ! I started with a 80grid sanding disk down to 320 grid for a really nice finish.

Step 4: Finishing the Box

To protect the box I just applied a polyuréthane resin on it. It was a good way to seal the wood and protect it from scratches, humidity...

But i was not happy with the shiny look of the resin. So I sanded really fine the box again and used a matt varnish as top coat !

I had to ad some reinforcement parts to mount the heavy rear door. The door is made of plywood and 6mm plexiglass. I used some kitchen hinges to mount the door.

The front panel is also made of plexiglass. The trick here is to place the cobra flash behind the plexiglass to use the plexiglass as diffuser !

The cut of the plexiglass with the CNC was just amazingly clean !

Step 5: Métal Tripod

I designed a metal base for this photobooth. I love this industrial look mixed to this scandi like wooden box on top.

It was no so easy to manage cutting the right angles, but with a ton of patience I finally managed it! I welded some flat metal bars under the base to add more weight and ensure the photobooth will not fall if someone accidentally hits it.

The design of the legs was made with the idea to save space ! The wooden box is just fixed on top of the legs with one screw. So it is easy to disassemble and to fit into a flight case for a safe transport.

I hope you enjoyed my first instructable !