Gramophone theater prop
By Anar on 15/05/2025, 09:22 - Permalink
For our theater play that takes place in 1920 I was in charge of making an old gramophone replica.
It didn't need to actualy work, but had to be realistic enough to convince the audience.
I made it by mixing laser cutting and engraving, 3D printing, and more traditional techniques (cardboard, wood marquetry, painting).
Our theater play "Marguerite" takes place in 1920 and involves the use of an old gramophone for a few scenes. Real antique ones being way out of our very limited budget, I decided to make one.
The project was first designed in SketchUp and will make use of different technics.
The main base box will be made out of laser cutted and engraved MDF and wood. The horn and needle holding mechanisms will be 3D printed and painted. And the horn will be made out of cardboard and paper gluing.
From experience I new that laser cutting and 3D printing won't be a big challenge, but worried a bit more about the horn making process. So I started with that part first...
Its complex shape and size makes it difficult for laser cutting or 3D printing so I opted for cardboard. The result is not perfect but overall I'm quiet happy with it. Here are a few photos from this step :
At this stage I left the painting for later and concentrated on building the wooden base.
The base is a very basic square box with no bottom, and a top with a big 30cm diameter centered hole.
It was made out of 6mm thick laser cutted MDF covered with wood marquetry.
I also laser cutted and engraved some 3mm thick MDF parts to add more details (mostly side panels and logo).
All the remaining parts making up the mechanisms were 3D printed.
As I only had white PLA left, I needed to paint them black before being able to apply a bronze paint effect.
I used black Posca covered with two layers of bronze paint :
The last stage was to paint the horn using spraycans.
But being a complete noob in spraycan painting, the result isn't very professional. Still it has the look and feel I was looking for.
The final result is quite pleasing and convincing and should be good enough when seen from the audience.
I would like to thank MakeICI Montreuil, and especially Darko, for letting me use their laser cutter for this project.
For those who are interested, "Marguerite" will be performed twice.
Once on Saturday June 7th (22:00) and once on Sunday June 8th (17:30) at "Salle Pompidou, 65 Grande Rue - 91360 Épinay-sur-Orge".
More informations here.