[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
[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.]
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.
[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.]
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!”
[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.]
[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.]
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.
Whether you make an entire systems as complicated as Adam Savage’s huge setup or as simple as something made from a peanut butter jar, the theory and operation is essentially the same:
Build an enclosure that can pull a vacuum
Put a bunch of holes in a side of that enclosure
Warm a sheet of plastic until it begins to soften
Turn on the vacuum and lower the warmed plastic over an object for the vacuum to pull the plastic around the object
In recent years there have been several Kickstarters for vacuum formers. At a few Maker Faires in the past I’ve gotten to see several of them up close. Don’t get me wrong – those professionally built models are great, but I probably won’t ever buy one. They’re probably great for consistent temperatures, going quickly and precisely from heat to vacuum, much bigger than my own DIY setup, and probably has some kind of safety testing.
That said, this is one of those “Pareto Principle” type tools. I can get way more than 80% of what I need way less than 20% of the cost. The bucket vacuum former costs probably $50 worth of materials plus a cheap heat source versus $500 – $5,000 for a more professional setup.
As I’m building up the “checklist” page for building a makerspace, I keep remembering additional things that should be added or expanded on. I ‘d prefer not editing the original blog posts and just adding a new one to address anything I’ve missed.
Honestly, I’m not even sure how I forgot some of these items – except that I was jumping around a lot as I was writing that initial blog post. How could I forgotten to add a soldering iron?! No matter. We’re fixing that.
It’s fine to start with a basic pen soldering iron, just know that you will almost certain dump it as soon as you get your soldering station. You can get a basic soldering iron at a hardware store, big box retailer, or your favorite DIY electronics company. However, you have to manage the cord while using it – otherwise the weight of the cord will want to pull it off the table / bench / work surface even if you have a iron stand. My hack to deal with this was to tape the cord to the table, so the weight was borne by the tape and not pulling at the hot iron next to me. If you are going to get a pen style soldering iron, get a good one where you know you can get replacement soldering iron tips. It was hard to find replacement tips for the crappy soldering irons I had.
If you’ve got just a few things to solder, these are actually fine and will work for many years. Even the fancy pen soldering irons that have temperature readouts on them take a while to heat up, lose their heat fast, and the ones I’ve had tended to have an inconsistent temperatures. That said, you can get a lot of soldering done if you go slow, are patient, take care of your soldering iron tips, and just accept some of your soldering will need to be redone.
Soldering iron station. $75+
I’ve bought probably three crappy to okay soldering pens over the last 20+ years and if I had just bought a single soldering station, I’d probably be ahead. However, the price, replacement costs, and ease of use aren’t the only considerations. I’ve never really had a big work space to have a soldering iron station set up until very recently, and if space is a premium for you too, just stick with the soldering irons. However, if you’ve got the space, these are great. Weller soldering irons are supposed to be the gold standard and having used them, I can see why. They heated quickly, transferred heat to the solder quickly, and were just easier to use all around.
Soldering supplies
These all pretty basic and all make sense. You’ll probably want extra soldering tips. You’ll definitely need lead-free solder and flux. You could get along without flush cutters and helping hands, but they’re extremely useful and will make your life easier.
Multimeter. $20
I bought a basic one from the hardware store years ago and it’s still going strong. I feed it a new 9v battery every few years and it’s fine. I can test continuity, voltage, resistance, and that’s about all I do.
Decibel meter. $20
I wanted to test out some 3D printed whistle designs, so I printed a bunch of different designs, and picked up an inexpensive decibel meter. I don’t use it very often at all, but it’s come in useful tons of times.
Temperature gun. $20
I think I originally bought the temperature gun to get a sense of well our HVAC system was working. But, it’s also fun to just use in a variety of circumstances. How hot is it outside? How hot am I? Or, heck, you can even use it as a laser pointer!
Lathe / CNC Lathe
Lathes are incredibly useful tools – if you know what they are and how to use them. I only have a general sense of what they can do – and have never used one. However, if I was building out an ultimate makerspace, I’d probably get one for the shop. After taking a class on how to use one safely, of course. They basically operate by holding something in a large chuck and then spinning it so that you can scrape at it to make a useful shape. If you’re not sure what this is – it’s exactly how you’d imagine a round chair or table leg is formed. A metal lathe could make screws, custom cylindrical parts, and tools to make more things.
The first time I even heard about a lathe was a long time ago in high school as a friend was telling me about his depression era grandfather who wouldn’t go to the hardware store for small parts – when he could find a small nail, put it in a lathe, drill it out, and make a small metal tube for some repair purpose. I didn’t really think about them much until I saw Cathal Garvey’s 3D printable microlathe on early Thingiverse back in 2010. That lead me down the path of learning about the Gingery lathe, how it was part of a toolpath to build a whole metal workshop starting from basically nothing. 1
Since I mentioned it above, a CNC lathe is a late that is connected to a CNC so that you can program it rather than manual operation.
Plastic injection molding
There’s a lot to say about plastic injection molding and I’m probably not the right person to say it. Usually injection molding generally requires some amount of CNC milling to create the mold or a CNC’ed metal frame / holder for a 3D printed mold.23 I don’t know that an injection molding device is right for a makerspace, because these can be expensive, big, require heat, plastic scraps or pellets, CNC’ed molds, and are only really better than a 3D printed object if you need a lot of a particular small item. I don’t think I’ll be getting any of these any time soon, but if you had a makerspace and some grants for equipment, I could investing in a smaller model.
If you’re not following The Crafsman Steady Craftin, you’re missing out. He makes amazing things, shows people how to make amazing things, and the videos are funny and entertaining. [↩]
I woke up this morning and all of a sudden my mind was flooded with more ideas for things that I use / reuse for making tools and supplies. Most of these tools don’t require any kind of high end products and would work just as well with whatever you can get from a thrift store, garage sale, or donation.
A heat gun is useful for applying shrink tubing on electronic connections, taking whisps of plastic off a 3D print, and a million other very small uses.1
Iron
A basic clothes iron can be extremely useful for fusing thin disposable plastic bags into plastic “fabric” and applying heat transfer vinyl. Even though I only use our iron for making purposes with a sheet of parchment paper between, it’s probably best to get an inexpensive and/or used iron to only use for this purpose.
Hot plate
A hot plate is an inexpensive, portable heat source that is extremely useful for warming small batches of things and for a mobile vacuum forming setup. At home, I’ll use an old toaster oven, but when taking the project on the go, a hot plate works super well.
Toaster oven
I’ve seen people use toaster ovens2 to perform flow soldering for small components with surface mount electronics. Also, it can be easier than using a hot plate, providing more even heat, when doing vacuum forming. I’m pretty sure you could also use it to melt plastic scraps into plastic sheets and crayon scraps into bigger crayons.
Panini Press
This hadn’t even occurred to me, but I saw an Instagram video about a couple guys who were melting plastic scraps with a panini press to jumpstart their business making things. Their process was basically… apply heat source to plastic bits from bottle caps, melt them into sheets, cut with a cookie cutter or knife, shape with woodworking tools, profits. I imagine that it would be very helpful to have a big press or custom press jig to make these sheets.
Microwave
I don’t have a particular use in mind, but I imagine that if you had an old microwave in a makerspace, you’ll quickly find a use for it.
Shredding / Mixing
Blender
Again, a used, thrifted, garage sale, or donated model is likely to be as good as any. You could use this to shred paper and water for paper mache pulp or thin plastic pieces to be melted into useable parts.
Spice or coffee grinder
Just as with the blender, but perhaps for smaller items. I would probably go for a blender first, but I imagine a small grinder could be very handy too.
Paper shredder
A regular office shredder could do double duty as a piece of standard office equipment as well as a pre-shredder for a blender based paper mache system – or as a source of paper to be used in paper mache.
Mixing attachment for drill
For about $15-20 you can pick up a mixing attachment for a drill. I don’t I’d get a ton of use out of this tool, but I imagine a $15 investment could save hours of work mixing white glue, water, and paper pulp into piles of paper mache.
Label Maker
I bought a thermal sticker label maker a while back and I love it. You can find these for as little as $10 to $20. The labels come in a variety of colors and shapes and features (transparent, shimmery, etc). I use it for spice labels, labelling boxes of arts and crat supplies, little to-do lists, and even proxy cards for Magic: the Gathering.
Personal Protection Equipment
Making things typically involves creating some kind of dust, materials that off-gas, create VOC’s, and caustic chemicals. If I were building out a makerspace today, besides the normal fans and such, I’d probably build up a cheap Corsi-Rosenthal air scrubber.
Masks, respirators, exhausts, fans, air scrubbers
Gloves for sharp things, gloves for hot things
Fire extinguisher, fire blanket, eye wash system/station
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 twoInstructables,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.
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? [↩]
