Portal Tissue Box

by fungus amungus

20K31623

Intro: Portal Tissue Box

Tissues come in boring boxes so why not put a geeked out cover on top of it? Why not indeed.

I recently saw this project on Kanojo.de and figured that I could easily do a version in acrylic with the help of a laser cutter. It also helps to make one big change which is to swap the Aperture icon on top for the blue Portal icon.

So where's the orange portal? On the inside of the box. Had to be consistent.

Here's how it was made.

STEP 1: Laser Cutting the Acrylic

This whole project uses 1.5 sq ft of 1/4" white acrylic and was cut on an Epilog Legend 36EXT.

The square and Portal cutouts were done in the normal way. Blasting with the laser until it was cut through. For the designs on the tops of the pieces, I did a light vector cut and peeled away the positive, leaving the safety film as a stencil.

Big, big thanks to Zeptozephyr at deviantART for making the vector files I used.

STEP 2: Paint!

The 5 side and bottom pieces were painted by first masking off the top edges and applying 2 coats of black spraypaint.

For the top piece, here is what I would do next time:
 - Mask Portals and paint edges black
 - Take off masking and paint underside orange (Montana Gold orange)
 - Spraypaint top side blue (Montana Gold light blue)

Let the paint dry to the touch and remove the tape and protective film.

STEP 3: Glue and More Glue

For the sides and top of the box I used an acrylic glue to glue it all together. I clamped and weighted it down and let the whole thing sit for 24 hours.

When that was done, I hot glued 4 magnets on the inside of the box as well as 4 nuts onto the base plate. Now, when the base plate goes on the bottom it holds itself in place so you can pick up the whole box without the tissue box falling out.

STEP 4: Enjoy the Box!

Now you have a Portal tissue box to enjoy!

For a brief bit, anyway. I made this as part of a redditgift Secret Santa gift exchange and mailed it out yesterday. I hope it gets there safely to the guy in Tennessee who gets it.

25 Comments

mattbenai 7 years ago

Another thing you could do is to make a pair, but instead of putting the opposite color portal on the inside, put it on the top of the other.

n0ukf 12 years ago

How many of us know someone with a laser cutter... let alone have one ourselves?

farmerboyk 11 years ago

They sell portal coasters somewhere, and there like the exact same thing.

cerebralentropy 12 years ago

You can use a vinyl cutter and use vinyl instead of paint. If you don't have a vinyl cutter just about every mall these days has a kiosk where they cut vinyl.

kderusha 12 years ago

Lol, I dunno where you live, but here in New York, no mall has a vinyl cutting kiosk (at least not from upstate to Albany. New York City might). However, anyone who considers using vinyl could ask around town to see if they could borrow one of those "Cricut" machines. They cut vinyl, but for a one-time project aren't really worth the price tag.

n0ukf 12 years ago

The only Cricut machines I've seen anywhere (Walmart, Kmart, etc) so far only have preprogrammed graphics, which I'm willing to bet don't include Portal graphics.

kderusha 12 years ago

Yes, cricut machines come with pre-programmed graphics, but for any hard-core artist (certainly any one willing to drop 200 dollars on a fancy cutting machine) will usually spring for the design studio, as well, which allows you to design your own graphics on a computer. Yes, designing portal graphics would be illegal, but anyone who wants a portal tissue box will just have to accept that fact and, you know, do it anyway.

IHaveNoBudget 12 years ago

to aim the laser, use the thermal discouragement beam redirection cube

ayralu 12 years ago

I can help you to cut it with laser. lol

fungus amungus 12 years ago

Use the tools you have. I have access to a laser cutter so I did it this way. If not you can use a service like Ponoko.

The project that I got the idea from used MDF. It's just a box.

canucksgirl 12 years ago

Lucky guy in Tennessee :)

Very creative, especially your magnetic design for the base. Great Job!

matokage 12 years ago

Looks cool and professional! the laser cuting really does the diference!

ayralu 12 years ago

Ooh. I can do acrylic tissue box too.

ayralu 12 years ago

lol But yours are more beautiful,
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