Te(a)lephone Box

This is a tea dispencer box in the shape of the iconc red telephone box found all around in the U.K. when mobile phones were still science fiction. Particularly, this design mimics the K2 model of the telephone box, which was mainly placed from the 1930s in the London area and which I personally find the most pleasing design of all. It can hold about 20 standard sized tea bags, which are filled from top (removeable lid). The bag at the bottom slips out of the opening at the front.

If you like these sort of models, please also check-out, download, print and like my other models of this kind:

Update 08.03.2023: I made some improvements marked “V2”:

• reduced the tolerances on the base part (from 0.4 to 0.3) for a tighter fit with the main part
• added tolerances to the door and the side part
• added a hole for fingers to help teasing out a bag if it is stuck
• added a split version of the frame (with built-in dowels) to allow printing on smaller printers (required printing height is now 182 mm)

Printing Instructions

Generally, this model is very easy to print and requires no postprocessing.

The te(a)lephone box obviously must be printed in red! I recommend to use PLA filament, which probably allows to print without supports, if the printer has good cooling (all overhangs are bridges and no longer than 75 mm, which should be manageable).

The base is optional and easy to print. Use a contrast color (e.g. black) if you decide to print it. It is simply plugged into the frame.

The lid is equaly easy to print. Use smaller layer hights for a better appearance of the shallow dome. Use concentric infill on top layers.

The frame might be a bit tricky. To hold tea bags and maintain the oritinal dimensional ratios it became a huge part with a hight of nearly 220 mm, which will not fit on some printers. Therefor I have uploaded two versions of the frame part:

The complete frame can be printed on large printers. As stated, it is possible to print without supports if you have faith in the cooling capabilities of your printer. If not, try out the tree support.

On smaller printers, you should print the naked frame and sides separately. The naked frame needs to be cut at layer hight 182 mm and, together with three sides and one front glued together. No supports required here (which might be a good option anyway, as this saves well 100g of waste material).

I printed all parts with a 0.6mm nozzle and 0.32 mm layer height (except the lid). Still, the details came out very well. The whole model took about 16 hours to print.

Assembly

The base is simply pulgged into the frame part.

There is a small compartment on the top of the frame, which can hold a 78 mm x 14 mm paper sign. The visible printing area is 70 mm x 10 mm. The original font used on these telephone boxes is Goldenbook Light. I have added PNG images, so you don't have to purchase the font- check out the files section of this post.