Posts

Showing posts from 2011

To Do List

Image
Great if you're trying to get prepared for the new year, a peg for each day of the week where you can hold the things you need to do.

Pentominos 2

Image
Here are the rest of the animals and the tray that I made to store all the pieces. Apparently there are 1200+ solutions to this puzzle but I only ever found the one below. ( svg here )

Pentominos 1

Image
This is a recreation of one of the first puzzles my uncle made for me, as he was coming over for Christmas I decided to remake it and return the favour. I found the basic files on Thingiverse but it took time to convert the angular animals in those files over to rounded ones for this puzzle, hence the split post. I will put the new files back on Thingiverse

Fancy Snowflake 2

Image
The second fancy snowflake and the final one for this year.

Fancy Snowflake 1

Image
I wanted to add a bit more class to the snowflakes so I made a few with some very fine details. These were for Kim as a Christmas present.

Reindeer Decorations

Image
A set of 5 reindeer made as a Christmas present.

Merry Christmas

Image
Just a silly little item for Christmas day, should anyone be checking. Spray painted gold and with hanging hooks for decoration purposes or suitable for Elizabeth Duke. Merry Christmas everyone, hope you all have a great day and I hope to see you all in the new year.

Illuminated Winged Heart

Image
I mentioned that there was a final mod I would like to make to this and I finally got round to doing it. I wanted the vanes to be heart shaped but there is an issue with the amount of light produced by one LED and multiple LED's are out of the question because that gives multiple lines of light. I still think the effect is pretty cool, although there will be another revision of this shortly.

Christmas Tree

Image
I liked the idea of stacking several snowflakes up in decreasing sizes to look like the branches of a Christmas tree. Top the whole thing with a star and voila.

Cake Stencil 2

Image
The last cake stencil seemed to draw a fair bit of attention on the blog and I always felt bad about not including any photos of the laser cut item. So here is another stencil I did recently for our Christmas party.

Christmas Card 5

Image
And the last of the series, with a quick round up of the bunch.

Christmas Wreath 2

Image
Building upon the base of the first wreath and taking on the snowflake idea I made this wreath with is simpler but much nicer.

Mosaic Coasters

Image
Besides all the laser cutting I'm still making other things too so I thought I'd post some of those up here. We bought these mosaic kits from Hobbycraft for £2.50 and they were actually very good fun to do, I'd recommend getting some if you can.

New Smaller Useless box

Image
After the moderate success of Kaths useless box (ok complete success really until the batteries go flat and we have to force the box open again) I've taken another look at the box design and the components and come up with something 50% smaller, taking less batteries and generally better all round. The new design features a battery compartment, an on/off switch (for power) on the underside and the lid is now pulled down with elastic to make sure it stays shut. The whole thing is made with shop bought components so I can fabricate as many as needed. This kit can be purchased through my shop  here

Christmas Wreath

Image
I wanted to make a laser cut wreath after the card series. I knocked up a poor prototype or two and then had a look around online for some inspiration. Turns out my wreath base was actually quite close to the one used by cardboard safari  (despite the fact they hide it well in their photos). It's a good base because you can easily switch the design that goes on top of the wreath, expect more variation soon. The bow and the berries provide useful detail but it's not my best work. (svg here)    

Christmas Card 4

Image
( svg here )

Christmas Card 3

Image

Bond

Image
A stick figure with an uncanny likeness for James Bond and a genuine replica of the table used in Goldfinger, only this time I succeeded with the frickin lasering. ( svg here ) And just to prove that practice really does make perfect, I never did manage to get a clean cut that caused the table to fall in half and I got through 3 different tables trying it.

Kindle Case 2

Image
I took a second attempt at the kindle case , this time I cut the folding section and then flipped it over to engrave on the reverse. This puts the living hinge on the right side of the case (the inside). To further improve the bend I wet the wood before clamping it into position while it dries. The spine is now bent a little in the right direction so  I wouldn't recommend folding all the way back now but it is better overall. The design is a quote by Douglas Jerrold .

Christmas Card 2

Image

Christmas Card 1

Image
Maybe getting a little late in the month but here they are anyway. I did white on colour first but definitely prefer colour on white.

Winged Heart

Image
These wings were started as part of the instructable I ran a few days ago, I finally finished the second wing and found something nice to go in between them. The heart needs a little bit more work and I have another little something to add that may take them to the next level again.

Really useless machine

Image
These have been kicking around for a while now but a friend just discovered them so I made her one for her birthday. This one uses a variant of the the living hinge design I saw on the MAKE blog . It uses a standard size servo, I removed the controller board, patched directly in to the motor and modified the servo for continuous rotation. It is powered by 3x AA batteries so it should last a while, which is convenient because I got too excited and glued the box shut before I figured out how I was going to change them. If I make another I would use magnets to hold the lid firmly closed until the arm comes out. ( svg here ) 18th Dec 2011: Now available for sale, a little bit smaller than this one but functionally and aesthetically the same. This kit can be purchased through my shop  here

Rubber Ducky Snowflake

Image
A special request from a friend, a rubber ducky snowflake.

Plain Snowflake

Image
I think calling it plain is under selling it a little, I like it and think it's quite pretty. I also did a quick spray paint test to see if the details lines showed through, good news they do.

Santa Lamp

Image
I made this lithophane christmas lamp for the instructables calender so it even comes with full instructions .