MakerBlock – Page 2

Digital assistant? [08/05/2010]

[I remember this time in my life. My eldest was only about 3 years old. I was still getting established in my field as a [professional man of mystery]. However, I don’t think there’s any way I actually needed a digital assistant. I think what I may have been starting to write was something about how a 3D printer could be a “digital assistant” in that it could make things for you while you were off doing other things. But, I never did anything with this beyond just… this one single line.]

I think I may need a digital assistant.

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

House calls [07/11/2010]

[I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who ever since I was a kid. In the 80’s it just hit that sweet spot for humor and sci fi, more interesting than Star Trek, only slightly less funny then Douglas Adams. But, I have no earthly idea what I was thinking when I started this post.]

Do you make house calls?

This country has been sick, this country needs healing, this country needs medicine – in fact I’d go so far as to say that, what this country really needs, right now, is a Doctor. – The Master (The Sound of Drums)¹

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

Screen cap courtesy of Themindrobber.co.uk – a super awesome Doctor Who web site. And, you know, the BBC. [↩]

New Print: Soft-Pawed Albino Stoat of South Wales Cookie Cutter [07/07/2010]

[It’s been a fun ride going through my backlog of drafts. I’ve published several and have literally hundreds more to go! Early 2010’s was a wild time for MakerBot, 3D printing, and the associated communities. There were several people who were regulars on the MakerBot forums as well as in the comments section of this blog. Before I was using OpenSCAD, I was making use of Sketchup which was an incredibly user friendly interface, was great as a “surface” modeling program, but kinda meh at making watertight solids. Back in these days you could literally read every single 3D printing related blog post, article, and watch every news piece in just a few minutes per day and even go a few days between any kind of major updates. Someone coming up with a new printer, completing their build, or just developing something new was big news. And, if you published some kind of nonsense blog such as my own, the comments and models that spin out of them would be a bit of fun for a few days. Essentially published as-is, with the exception of one grammatical correction.]

Designed in California, printed in New England a few hours later.

I actually learned a fair bit from my llama cookie cutter. This time I designed in Sketchup, ran through a polygon reduction plugin, exported through a Sketchup STL exporting plugin, and fixed the STL in NetFabb before uploading to Thingiverse.

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

MakerBot on CBS! [07/07/2010]

[This was an entire blog. I changed one grammatical fix, but it’s otherwise the same exact post I wrote 16 years ago and abandoned. While I’m still very nostalgic for the days of the MakerBot-that-was, I’m probably even more glad that 3D printing went so mainstream that every farmer’s market across America has multiple stalls selling 3D printed flexi-dragons and keychains. We’re well past the days of 3D printing operators creating makeshift nozzles from drilling out nuts and wrapping nichrome wire by hand and more into being able to pick up a roll of filament somewhere in your neighborhood. Yes, it means more 3D printed garbage sitting on shelves, but it also means regular people have a chance to actually innovate and iterate things without significant tooling and manufacturing barriers.]

In case you missed it, here’s the CBS piece on MakerBot and a “web extra” that didn’t make it to air during the televised interview.

I didn’t realize this, but apparently all the press from MakerBot hitting CBS evening news was enough to crush their website. As best as I can tell at least some portions of their website are hosted on the Amazon cloud. That’s a LOT of traffic. As they say, success is a good problem to have.

As a purely self-interested person I really like the idea of more and more people having access to a MakerBot or RepRap. The more these technologies are available, the easier it will be to get replacement parts and extra plastic. Perhaps more importantly, the more people using personal fabrication technology the more designs and upgrades and developments we’ll see.

Just imagine – someone who watched that CBS episode or those video clips has an amazing idea right now and the only thing holding them back is getting their paws on a MakerBot. Did you notice the little poll box on one of those CBS pages? When asked, “Do you plan to buy a 3-D printer within the next year?” 82% of respondents “Yes”, 12% were undecided.

Did you also notice NO ONE voted for “Screw this, I don’t want to live in the future!”

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

MakerBot Operator’s Manual [06/04/20210]

[This post had no content – except a link to a Google Groups post under the MakerBot Operators group. Since I use this website as a lab notebook, this would have been a good place to preserve this kind of basic “start up guide” information for a MakerBot.]

operators guide ?

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

Mendel Parts – Printed, Cast, CNC’d, Lasercut or Injection Molded? [Draft 04/12/2010]

[This draft post is over 16 years old. Back in 2010 RepRap was exploding. People were cranking out 3D printed RepRap Mendel parts, then people started selling parts cast from 3D printed parts, then selling the actual molds?! I think I was going to discuss the quality of 3D printed parts, their molded counterparts, and other options. Back in mid-2009 the MakerBot was launched with zero 3D printed parts, everything made from lasercut pieces of thin plywood.]

quality of molded parts

comparison of cnc, molded, etc parts

Drafts Zero - The Lost Blog Posts

Cardboard Everything

I’ve always loved working / building with cardboard because it is easy to work, basically ubiquitous and free, and as flexible or durable as you need. Each of the following videos are ones that I return to over and over again because they’re interesting ways to build from cardboard.

Building a Cardboard Cutter Table With Cardboard

I hadn’t heard of a cardboard table saw before seeing the Chomp Saw at Maker Faire and Kickstarter several years ago. ¹ During their run on Shark Tank they disclosed it took $73.81 to make each one.²

When I originally saw the ChompSaw, I had no idea how the thing worked and assumed it was some kind of custom made invention. It wasn’t until much later I learned it was basically a drill + a sheet metal nibbler + plastic box. A maker named Alejandro Leguizamo entered something called the “Builder Box” for the Rocklin Maker Faire in 2025. The description was “Experience the Builder Box! The Builder Box is a power drill accessory which cuts various materials, like cardboard, fabric, and plastic, in a safe manner, perfect for young makers. Test prototypes, share your thoughts, and be part of its evolution.” but I wasn’t sure what it was or how it worked since the only picture was a kind of a logo. I reached out to the maker and it turned out that he couldn’t make it to the event that year, but he explained the project was, as suggested above, a drill + sheet metal nibbler + a box. Suddenly, the logo made sense!

Builder Box Logo

Once I knew what I was looking at, it instantly became easier to find more resources. I found piles of nibblers / sheet metal nibblers for sale online for ~$30-40, several pictures and an unlisted video from ChompShop, and two Instructables,³ One of the instructables indicated you could use a foot peddle to act as a variable speed controller for the drill. While an interesting idea, I’m not certain the additional incremental benefit is worth the complexity. The ChopmSaw is able to operate at a single speed, so why not this? While an on/off toggle switch is obviously helpful, I’m not going to go out of my way to add this for my own simple prototype/home use. The unlisted maintenance video shows the ChompSaw’s disassembly showing a motor, a nibbler end, bits of wire and such, in a plastic housing, with a fan and tray for catching the cardboard bits – exactly as one would expect.

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Before I go on, a word about their work station. I got to see one of these at Woodland’s Square One makerspace and thought it was fantastic. It’s cheap, lightweight, sturdy, and attractive. I’m not sure where someone would get the cardboard for these tables, but ChompShop has a guide on building the workstation and an accompanying video. While I would love to have the plans to be able to make one, it’s child sized, would need to be scaled for adult use, and at that point, I really might as well design my own.

I’m reminded of a a guy who invented a simple and attractive business card that turned into a cell phone stand. He went on to create a cardboard furniture / homegoods design studio called “Out of the Box.”⁴ Like many other people, we accumulate a lot of cardboard. It sure would be great to have plans to draw out designs on cardboard, chop them up with a drill + nibbler, and then fold into furniture.

My understanding of the Gingery lathe is that as you build the device, the portions you’ve built help you build the next pieces. How cool would it be to pick up a nibbler and cheap drill, slap them together, start slicing up parts to make simple mount, then use that to keep building up into a workstation, then desk, then cardboard workshop?

In any case, given the entire project could be basically put together with:

Cheap drill (Harbor Freight has some for less than $20)
Nibbler attachment ($30-$40 at the hardware store or online)
3D printed part to clamp drill in place
Box of some kind
Zip ties to hold drill and clamp in place and hold the drill trigger down or at a certain speed
Extension cord or power strip to turn the drill on and off

Now, I could put my regular corded drill into this, but for an extra $20 I could also have a small dedicated cardboard cutting worktable which seems like a fair investment to me.

Making a Makerspace

Unfortunately, the Maker Faire website regularly wipes out maker entry pages, so I can’t easily link back to the 2023 entry as I would much prefer. [↩]
It’s unclear whether this is the per unit cost from their Chinese factories, to just build a unit, or actual landed cost. I’m guessing landed from their manufacturer. [↩]
Those instructables posted about 9 years ago and 3 years ago, respectively. [↩]
Though, possibly renamed to Creative Cardboard Company now? [↩]

Makerspace: Just a few more things for the shopping list

Is there a word for the feeling when you place an online order and the moment you hit “Purchase” you realize there was something else you wanted and now it’s too late? No? Um… me neither.

Since publishing a large blog post about my wishlist / shopping list for building a makerspace two days ago I’ve got two new things to add to the list. I wonder how best to maintain this list. While a wiki would be the best for maintaining evolving content, the tone of my posts tend to be a mix of useful things and nonsense and I’d have to heavily edit / format the content. Maybe one day I’ll get organized and create a page on this site that’s something of a shopping list with links back to the rambling posts.

1. Low Rider CNC.
2. Hot Foam Cutter.

Low Rider CNC.
1. My buddy Andrew suggested the Low Rider CNC belongs on this list. I haven’t done a deep dive on this yet, but just checking out the main documentation pages, it looks amazing. While a full table sized CNC can run $7-10k, this Low Rider CNC appears to be community supported, open source, and designed for people to build themselves for ~$100 in hardware and electronic parts, plus 3 kilos of 3D printed parts, zip ties, conduit/rails, router, table, and wood. An affiliate appears to sell partially assembled and fully built options from $900 – $1,500, which appears to include shipping.
Hot Foam Cutter.
1. I was reminded these existed after seeing this Mastodon post from Concretedog about his 4D CNC hot foam cutter. However, it’s possible to build a hot foam cutter with little more than some nichrome wire, a battery, and some random stuff.
2. While I don’t have a ton of uses for a hot foam cutter… but I did purchase some nichrome wire two years ago specifically to make one of these for … reasons I no longer recall. I made the purchase some time in October 2024, so it couldn’t have have been for Maker Faire and likely not for Halloween…
3. A little extra research brought me back down a rabbit hole to rediscover why I started thinking about hot wire foam cutting.
4. At Maker Faire 2023 I was excited to see Robert van de Walle’s “composite structures with low VOC materials” 2023 Maker Faire project. The project showed off how he would avoid the use of fiberglass and resins in favor of laminated paper using glue over an insulation foam structure.
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5. Robert also has an interesting tutorial about using Harbor Freight floor mats for making inexpensive, lightweight, and flexible structures using contact cement instead of expensive pink insulation boards. Robert’s video was in turn inspired by Evil Ted Smith‘s video demonstrating how to copy forms into inexpensive foam mats by covering the object in aluminum foil, that in duck tape, taking the coverings off, cutting them into flat shapes with “darts” for alignment and to allow the formation of curves, cutting these out of foam, heat forming, applying contact cement, then reassembling. Both of these videos had previously sent me down a rabbit hole of looking into making “poor man’s fiberglass” to make a foamie using cloth and wood glue over a lightweight structure. And, more recently Nighthawkinlight’s videos about making strong lightweight structures with what amounted to lumber made from cardboard, covered in a water proofing coating. I remember watching a video about biomimicry and how the how the toucan’s beak can be both strong and lightweight because it is essentially a lightweight, nearly hollow, sparse structure wrapped in a tight hard shell of keratin.
6. Anyhow, I think I was researching these things after Maker Faire because of how miserable it was to cut sheets of foam with a craft knife which then lead to soooo much sanding. I figured in the future I could design something that would let me create almost a small hot wire cutter to consistently and easily cut shapes and beveled edges into foam.

Sometimes I want to add an update only to discover that I never published a blog post about a thing I wanted to link back to. I guess it’s time to dust off my pictures from 2024 leading up to Maker Faire to share information about how we made my kiddo’s Fallout inspired combat armor from Harbor Freight floor mats.

With the magic of time travel, I’ve now created that post and can now link to it. :) Share and enjoy.

Making a Makerspace

Making Cosplay Armor from Foam Mats

This post has been a long time coming. My kiddo and I made Fallout inspired combat armor out of Harbor Freight floor mats. We’ve now brought these to Maker Faire 2024 and 2025. They’re only $13 for about 16 square feet of 1/2 inch thick sheets of material which was enough for a front and back panel plus enough to do it all again.

I’ll update the photos below with pictures of the finished¹ armor. However, below is what it looked like part way through the construction process. We added some 3D printed parts to allow the front and back “plates” to be kept together with some seat belt looking nylon webbing.

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The very short version of the build guide, for our first simple builds with these mats, would be:

Make patterns on paper or cardboard
Trace and/or cut out of foam using a utility / craft knife you don’t care about because the foam will dull the knife quickly
Bevel/shape/sand as needed
Using gloves, apply a thin layer of contact cement to one piece of foam and the other piece where it’s supposed to go. Let it dry. Then, carefully place one piece upon the other – because the moment the two pieces are joined the contact cement will bond instantly making adjustments² impossible.
Bevel/shape/sand/paint as needed
If making weathered armor / metallic features, consider using a silver pen or paint to dry brush on the silver color

I tend to take pictures as I build things out of an ambition to turn them into a blog post at some point. So, hopefully these pictures give a sense of how the build went:

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These were easy enough to create as the entire design was basically just bit flat planks of material. Making more complicated / curved features would probably best be done by using a heat gun to soften and shape or cutting the curved features into flat panels with “darts” / wedges cut out so that when they’re glued together and the form built up, it will take on a curved shape.

The tutorial videos from Robert van de Walle and Evil Ted Smith are absolutely worth watching. The short version would be that when copying another form, you could cover it with aluminum foil, that in duck tape, draw in lines for what could be fairly flat sections, including registration marks, cut the duck tape into flattened sections with “darts” as necessary, trace onto and cut out from foam, heat-shape as necessary, apply and allow contact cement to dry, assemble. Some stills from ETS’s videos might be helpful:

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These stills won’t do the full videos justice, so you should go watch those. Robert’s point with his short 3 minute video was basically that these materials are incredibly inexpensive, able to build up huge shapes quickly, and look great. I’d agree on all counts.

Nothing is ever finished. [↩]
Nearly [↩]

Low Rider CNC.

Hot Foam Cutter.