Making a homemade shadow puppet theatre out of wood

In this video I make a DIY shadow puppet theater out of 9mm birch plywood. I used traditional woodworking tools side by side with my CNC. More info about my 3D carver here:

Easel 

X-Carve 

Inventables 

The carving bit I used was this.

I begun the project by creating plans of what I wanted to make. Next I transferred a few measurements on a 9mm birch plywood piece.

I begun cutting, using my circular saw and a guide rail. To cut the screen area I used a jigsaw. But before that I drilled an entry hole for my jigsaw’s blade.

Next I used corner clamps to temporarily hold a support piece in place. After that I glued and nailed the bottom piece in place. 

I then marked the miters for the rest of the pieces and cut them on the table saw using my cross cut sled. I then glued and nailed the pieces in place. I wiped off any excess glue, using a wet rag.

Next I cut a few support pieces on the bandsaw. I glued and nailed them in place, using a spruce scrap as a spacer.

After that I cut the shelve to size and then glued and nailed on it’s position. I also added another support piece in the middle of the shelve.

Then I cut the corner supports on the bandsaw and shaped them on the belt sander. I glued and nailed them in place with my air powered nail gun.

Next I used my miter box to cut the pieces for the front frame. I glued and nailed them in place. After that I used wood filler to fill all the imperfections.

While I was waiting for the filler to dry I started 3D carving my typography elements.

I first imported my SVG file into easel and set up the project. Then I let the CNC machine do all the work for me. 

Next I used my carving gouge to cut off the tabs left over from the 3D carving process. Finally I sanded with 100 grit. 

At this point the filler was dry and I started sanding with the angle grinder. I also hand sanded the edges and used my power sander to reach to a few difficult spots.

Then I painted everything with latex paint. When the first coat dried, I lightly sanded with 220grit. After that I applied the second and final coat of the paint.

Next I added a guideline and arranged the typography on it. I glued and nailed the letters in place.

I used Greek words which mean “Theater of shadows”.

Next I used the CNC again to make the cabin of the scenery. I first scanned my sketch and created a vector version of it. Then I imported my SVG file back to easel. I started 3D carving and when I was done, I removed the tabs and sanded the piece. 

I then cut a piece of canvas to size and stapled it in place. To keep the canvas tight and flat you have to staple the opposite sides first and continue this way till the end.

Next it was time to add the lights. I used 3 LED stripes on a piece of plywood. I first added solder on the contacts of the LEDs. Then I added solder on the ends of the jumper wires. When this was done I could easily connect everything together. I connected the positives with the positives and the negatives with each other. Finally I connected everything with the power supply. 

The adhesive on the back of the LEDs is not that reliable. So I used my hot glue gun to secure the pieces in place.

Then I secured the lights inside of the box with nuts, bolts and washers.

Back to easel again I imported the SVG file of my puppet. The x-carve started the carving and before I knew it the puppet was done.

I connected the puppet’s parts with wire and glued bamboo sticks in place. The sticks act as handles.

In the traditional Greek shadow puppet theater my character is called Karagiozis.

My theater was ready at this point. I was really happy with the way it came out. I really want to thank Inventables for sponsoring this video!

I hope you like my little theater. See you soon with a new project video!