Reproducing a vintage Omega bakelite watch box in Blender and 3D printing it.

I've been learning Blender and 3D printing as a hobby. I first started about a year ago to model historic chess sets.

Here's an example:



Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to throw my interest in watches into the mix. 🤔

So I challenged myself to make one of these early bakelite boxes:



The problem is, I don't own one and they're pricey. I needed one in my hands. So I searched OF for members who might be able to help me out.

After a short back and forth, @Rman kindly offered to lend me one! I'm very thankful for his gesture.

With a box in hand and a fine caliper, I got to work. Along with the box dimensions and geometry, I had to recreated the Omega font by tracing it.



And here are some final renders:



In the slicer:



And here is it printed to original dimensions:



(sorry, not an Omega watch)



Here's one next to @Rman 's example.



I modeled two "watch beds". One is more historically accurate and the other has thumb holds to make it easier to remove. The original box a nice fabric pull tap. I can't print one of those, hence the variant with the finger holds.



The box is a little small for modern watches. Of course, the 3D model, can be sized up and down to user preference. You could fit a moon watch in one of these if you really wanted to.



If you've got a fine brush and some yellow paint, you can also trace over the logo.



For anyone who would like to print this for free, I've uploaded the files here.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/1953782-art-deco-omega-watch-box-reproduction#profileId-2099610

Current AI modeling programs can only give rough approximations.

Here is an example of what I mean. I ran my recreation through Rodin - a limited-free AI generative modeling program similar to meshy.




And this was the result:




It looks half decent at first glance. But the more you look at it, the more obvious the flaws are. It's lumpy and inaccurate and, of course, butchered the logo. We're just not there yet.