Horreo Jewelry Box–Fabrication

Introduction

Jewelry box’s are so lame. There are just classy wooden boxs that are timeless and beautiful, so I plan on reinventing them. But what do I plan on changing the shape of a jewelry box to you might ask…a Galician horreo!!! Now I am aware that is seemingly random. However, this is because I plan on making a jewelry box in the shape of a Galician horreo for my girlfriend, who is Galician. She is perfect and awesome and she deserves something incredible to store the magnificent jewelry I intend on buying her(probably like ring pops). 

Galicia is a region in the northwest of Spain where they speak there own language, live in a humid, wet climate, and have the best tasting food in the world. Furthermore, the people are awesome, especially my girlfriend.

Figure 1: Galicia on a map

Figure 2: An example Galician horreo

I will take this overall shape and try to convert it into a jewelry box. You might be wondering what is a horreo? Well it is a grain storage device used by Galician farmers. They have slits around them for airflow but don’t let any water in thus letting the grain dry. Most have crosses on them since Spain is very Catholic and a lot were built around churches. The Horreo is on stilts, or pegollos, because the stilts are used as “mice stompers” to keep out rodents.

Timeline

Figure 3: Timeline of the project

As you can see it took me about a month to build the entire horreo. I started over spring break and took about 20 hours on the CAD model of the project. Parts of the model were quite tricky for me, and the shape took a little bit more designing for me than I originally anticipated. However, the CAD model was definitely the most time intensive part of the project, but it had the benefit of being most of the “fabrication” for the project. This is because I 3D printed all of my parts, so I didn’t actually make anything(even though I did but in a way I didn’t). The 3D printing of the roof and the base took about 17 hours(since I was using a resin printer). The resin printer took really long, however, the horreo looked almost perfect, and didn’t have those characteristic 3D printing layer lines that look cheap. After I 3D printed the main body, I went out a couple weeks later and started spray painting the stone texture on the horreo. This took a couple of hours and around a day to dry. Then I 3D modeled and printed the statues for the top of the horreo and the same goes for the ring holders on the inside of the horreo. This whole process took around 2 days to model and print. Finally, I painted those and added some finishing touches to the entire design! This means that to fully create and finish my horreo, I needed about a month!

Fabrication Process

I started by creating the base of the horreo in Solidoworks, by using many reference images and guess’s for the size I wanted for the jewelry box. I didn’t find creating the base overly difficult, but it did take a while to make everything look right.

Figure 4: Progress pictures taken of the CAD model of the base of the horreo

After I created the base of the horreo, I moved on to modeling the roof.

Figure 5: Progress pictures taken of the modeling of the roof support of the horreo

I found creating this top section to be one of the most difficult parts of the CAD model. For some reason it was difficult to get the dimensioning correct, and I kept experiencing general difficulties with Solidworks while trying to create it. However, after finishing this top section, I moved on to creating the Spanish roof tiles that would cover the horreo’s roof.

Figure 6: Progress pictures taken of the modeling of the roof tiles of the horreo

It turns out that roof tiles are actually kind of complicated and hard to get right. I managed to find a forum online that had a tutorial on how to build them, but it was really hard to follow, and not well laid out. However, after spending a bit of time I was able to create something that looked like a roof tile and attach it to the roof. I think it looks pretty good, and I think its perfect 🤩. Finally, the last thing I made for the horreo was the “pegollos” or the stilts on the bottom, and the little pillars on the top for the symbols to stand on.

Figure 7: First stage of completed CAD model

Next, I printed this version of the horreo on my brothers 3D printer. I printed the base, top section, and legs all separately.

Figure 8: Printing of the horreo and a cool thumbs up

Printing the horreo went surprisingly smoothly, however, the top of the horreo was printed slightly weird, as it looks like the supports crumbled slightly, giving an un-level base. Furthermore, one of the windows of the base of the horreo was misprinted, leaving a hole. However, the stilts were printed with no issues! I find these errors not to be dramatic enough to be worthy of a reprint.

Next, I started to paint the horreo. I used a rustic stone spray paint and taped up everything that wasn’t meant to be stone.

Figure 9: Stone painting

Next, I designed and painted the stone statues that would go on the horreo and installed the magnets.

Figure 10: Stone statues

Figure 11: Magnets 🧲 in the horreo

After installing the magnets and the statues, I painted the rest of the horreo and glued in the ring holders.

Figure 12: Painting the horreo

Finally, I added some plants to the whole that was misprinted, and I think it gives the horreo a great floral touch!

Figure 13: Plant in the horreo!!

Thats the end of my long fabrication process that actually wasn’t to bad(because Im incredible at making things apparently).

Conclusion

My original plan with this horreo was to make it into a jewelry box. I believe I accomplished that and for that I am proud. Furthermore, it holds rings like Tom Brady and is as sexy as a Galician sunset. Furthermore, I adapted a misprint into an even better design(with plants), and I think that creativity is worth bonus points. If I were to do anything differently I would have designed something to fit into the roof of the horreo as there is some empty space. In fact, I might do something with that in the future. My work of art will now be donated to the The Museum of Modern Art in New York City(however, until I ship that over it will be with my girlfriend). My girlfriend loves the horreo jewelry box and couldn’t be happier to be with me. It truly is awesome. She thinks it fits a Galician aesthetic to a tee. What will I do next? You can probably find me sculpting a large statue out of stone like the Statue of David or playing Minecraft.

Citations

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_%28Spain%29 

[2]https://www.polyglottando.com/?p=979

[3] Created using timeline.graphics.com