This project is made for a real Efteling fan, the Efteling is a theme park in the Netherlands. His favourite ride is the Baron 1898, a dive coaster ride with a drop of 37.5 meters. In this post we tell you how and why we have made it.
Background story
The Baron 1898 is about Gustave Hooghmoed, who finds a nugget of gold in a mine. In the mine some spirits warn Gustave not to take the gold. Gustave doesn't listen and buys the whole area of land to secure himself the mine. He starts calling himself the "Mine Baron" and recruits miners to dig for the gold. One by one, the miners flee from the mine and not a single one manages to stay under long. The guests of the park are invited to dare and go have a look into the mine themselves.
On the photo below you see the concept art of the ride that we used for inspiration.
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| Concept art of the Baron 1889 |
The outside of the box
We started with a wooden chest, we then gave it a typical "Efteling look", which you can see on the photo below.
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| Lid of the box |
For the people who aren't familiar with the park, the plaster work and stone work are quite remarkable and used on some of the rides. The next photo is of a dark ride in the style of fairies and elves, called Droomvlucht, and it has the same texture and look that we used for the box.
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| Droomvlucht |
The next step was integrating the dive coaster to the box. The Baron 1898 is in the style of a Dutch gold mine, the steel frame of the coaster is Steampunk. On top is a big red, turquoise and gold wheel that takes the mine carts up and down the mine.
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| The drop of 37.5 meters |
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| The big wheel |
We drew a frame, scanned it so we could scale it to the perfect size, printed it. We put the paper on a layer of frame and carefully cut them out.
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| Fitting everything onto a layer of foam |
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| Progress |
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| Gluing multiple layers together |
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| The first test of the foam with the lid |
The gift set
We've painted the foam a green/blue colour, just like the frame of the dive coaster, and glued all the bits to the box.
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| Front view |
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| Front & side view |
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| Side view |
Unfortunately we didn't have real gold nuggets, but these chocolate coins did the trick! On the inside we added a chain so the lid couldn't fall backwards too much and damage the back. We made a scroll with a personal message for the receiver of the gift set with a cryptic hint on where to find the gift...
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| The set |
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| A secret hole hidden underneath the coins |
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| The hole is used to lift the false bottom and underneath was the real gift! |
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