An electrical box

As I mentioned in the previous post, the diorama I'm working on shall also contain an electrical box as then used by the Stockholm Electrical Works ("Elverket"). This is a picture of such a box:

The box itself would not be that hard to model. It should be fairly easy to shape from a piece of wood or plastic.The tricky part would be the relief lettering, especially considering that in the 1:35 scale the letters would only be a couple of millimeters tall. And I wanted the lettering to be in relief since that was a key characteristic of these boxes. I could not come up with any good solution until it struck me that this could be a golden opportunity to try some 3D-printing!

I happened to know that Shapeways (at shapeways.com) offers a 3D-printing services. After having looked at some tutorial videos on their site I downloaded the TinkerCAD tool and managed to create a 3D model of something that in my eyes looked very much like the actual box. I uploaded the 3D model file to Shapeways and ordered a print. I choose it to be printed in a plastic material they call Frosted Extreme Detail (FXD).  (EDIT sep 2022: Now called "Fine Detail Plastic")

And today I got the resulting 3D print delivered by UPS:

It is not a perfect replica of the real box, but I think it is good enough. Some painting, weathering and what-not, and I think it will do the trick.