Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A beautiful metal iPhone case manufactured out of brass or aluminum.

The cases are made by artists with real skills and a CNC router in Brooklyn – in this economy that’s a good thing.



 The wooden insert makes the case! Rock on iPhone fetish!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Chocolate Pilcrow


Graphic designer Fabio Bartali had the idea to make a chocolate pilcrow. With a few sketches, he came to the CabFabLab to figure out the best way to bring his project to life.
Thier intern Sjors helped Fabio design a 3D model in SolidWorks. They then assisted Fabio in working with the CNC router to machine the positive mold for the silicone resin. This mold was used to create a negative silicone mold to produce the chocolate character.
Fabio sent the chocolate pilcrow to his clients as a holiday gift. This project was partly inspired by Hans Wisbrun’s ChocoPi project.


Fabio’s original sketch of the mold.



















The rendered 3D model of the pilcrow mold in SolidWorks



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The finishing pass on the CNC router.



Pouring silicone into the master mold.



Liquid white chocolate solidifying inside the silicone molds.



The end product:  plenty of chocolate pilcrows in 3 different types of chocolate!


Acrylic Cribbage Board

by
This was a gift this Christmas to my Father. His initials are JR obviously that is why the board is designed that way. It is made from 1” thick acrylic (expensive stuff). I had a hard time laying out the holes so that they would flow well, thank goodness for AutoCAD. I used the CNC Router to get such precise hole alignment and depth. The only draw-back was that speed at which the drill was spinning was too fast making the holes not too clean (as seen in the pictures. Since the pictures were taken I was a black sharpie to color the lines black. It really makes the lines stand out more. The holes in the middle of the R and J are for scoring. I routed the edges with a 1/8” radius bit and had to drill the vertical holes in the top for storage of the pegs. I polished it with steel wool after I had sanded it all way with 320.



When machining this piece on the CNC out of a blank, with an up cut bit, near the end of the machining process the piece broke suction and lifted off the table and exploded on the table of the CNC, so in turn I had to get a new blank and screw it down to the table to ensure that it didn’t come off the table. That happened on the 24th of December so needless to say I gave him the broken one and machined a new one two weeks later.

Transfer cutting board: You can make one yourself on a CNC Router


When preparing food it’s unavoidable to get messy all over your kitchen island/table but the Transfer cutting board by designers Chris & Ruby promises to turn even the noobiest chef wannabe into a little Jamie Oliver.
Its simple and clever design helps you move chopped food to a single plate quickly and by making it environmentally friendly (solid beech which has been oiled with biological linseed oil) you have a winner that can really get into every kitchen around the world. Yes, little green objects add up to big environmental effects and any object that go green is one more victory for the planet.
Produced in Berlin, Germany by the already mentioned designers Chris & Ruby, the Transfer chopping board isn’t yet priced or available but we’re keeping our eyes open for the news.



Or you can make one yourself on a CNC router and post an instructable of it. Anyway the designers were quite brilliant with this idea.