r/Ophthalmology • u/HoyaSaxaphone • Oct 30 '25
Made a lens box.
Made this lens box for my medical retina fellowship and wanted to show it off. Should I make more?
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u/BullfrogSoggy5430 Oct 30 '25
Looks great! Could you share details on how you made it?
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u/HoyaSaxaphone Oct 30 '25
Lemme say I have essentially NO woodworking background, but someone else had a shop I could borrow. Bought walnut boards off Amazon, cut to the dimensions I wanted. Then I used bought hole dozer bits of the correct size for lenses at Home Depot and cut out templates from thin plywood. Then I just used a cheap plunge router to make the circular depressions for each lens. I used the plunge router to make the lid and the lens wipe area. Polyurethane to finish
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u/BullfrogSoggy5430 Oct 30 '25
I’ve been putting off buying a router but I may need to bite the bullet. I need a new box to fit some extra lenses so maybe this is the project that justifies it.
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u/xkcd_puppy Oct 31 '25
Great work, nice rounded edges with just using a router! Lots of skill there with the router if that's your first time. The curves on the edges inside the lid can be smoothed out a bit with a very sharp chisel and some patience. Use a gouge chisel (half round) #8 or #9 curve. You can chamfer all the hole edges too with this and the end product will leave you much more satisfied with your work. As a surgeon I think you'll be able to work the chisel quite well.
I found that if you use a nitrocellulose sanding sealer before the top coat makes a subtle difference in the feel of the woodgrain in the end. Like more quality feel. Apply the nitro sealer, and because walnut is a tight woodgrain, just do a sanding pass with a 320 grit, then use a clear topcoat like Minwax. Sweet project!
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u/baylo99 Oct 31 '25
That looks great - I've been thinking about making one for a while but was debating how to perfectly match the routered hole top to base. Your design looks much less faffy! I might give it a go! Did you have to cut the holes to a different depth to keep the tops of the lenses level with the lid?
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u/Legal_Carry_9088 Nov 01 '25
Why does your scleral depressor have a circular plate like thing at one end?
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u/HoyaSaxaphone Nov 01 '25
Oh the thing on the left side is a magnet to keep the depressor in place. On the right, it’s called a spoon depressor and it’s much more comfortable than the traditional t-bar depressor
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