Category Archives: projects

Buddha Sculpture

One of the projects I have wanted to do since initially getting into CNC work a couple of years ago, has been a sculpture. It’s something that you see as a show-off project in videos by the big companies. I roamed around the internet looking for a suitable “thing” to sculpt and liked the Buddha design right away. It’s a very complex design – the fabric folds, facial features – but also fairly simple – there are no tiny patterns in the fabric or jewelery, for example. A perfect candidate. If a design has a lot of tiny details, they will either be lost entirely, look muddy or require a super tiny cutting bit to get them (which increases the amount of time by magnitudes).

But I’d never quite gotten it right. So it became a sticking point. I don’t like having an unfinished project hanging over me, so eventually I had to conquer it. And thus, it has been a bit of a running joke whenever we get a new type of tool, cutter or software: Can this make the Buddha?

So a little explanation on this particular one. It was especially tricky to carve because it’s so deep. I wanted it to be as deep as I could make it, because part of the charm of the design is that it isn’t flat. I used a 1/4″ cutting bit for most of the work – it is a reasonable size and happens to be the highest-quality bit I have in that size range. It is 1.3″ long. This project is 3.8″ deep. The tool has to sit in a tool-holder.

You can see what I’m talking about in this photo I took a while ago:

So you can see, that if you try to move too deeply on too sharp of an incline plane, that the tool-holder will collide with your work. This is one of those problems that doesn’t exist if you are making something by hand, but is a very big deal in a machine. I measured everything very precisely, and then gave myself a tiny bit of wiggle room. I ran the simulations at least 10 times to make sure everything was okay. When it didn’t work, I modified the model and the size and the placement and tried again. Finally, I had something that checked out in the simulator. Time to make sure I did it properly!

Usually when I’m making something, I start it and then walk away. This is great because it is passive time invested in the project. I can’t use the machine for anything else while it’s cutting, but I can do other things. I spent most of the time for this one watching it intently, ready to hit the emergency stop at any moment. I did hit it a couple of times, examined, realised it would be okay, and then let it run again.

Once it was cut out, I did the small engraving and carved out the pockets. This fruitwood is absolutely intoxicating. The smell when cutting it was amazing – I wish I had more of this stuff!! Alas, all I had was this single piece of wood, in this size. (It is about 15″ tall and 5″ wide, and 4″ deep)

The back is finished, because I needed to be sure that it was flat. I left as much natural and rough as I could. I love the finished product. I put a lot of time into this — after it cut, I went over with it various grades of sandpaper for 2 hours to everything smooth and perfect. Usually I would use a smaller sized bit to do the finishing work – but I didn’t have anything long enough to do that.

This piece is for sale! You can buy it here.

I hope it gets a happy home.

So what’s up with this woodworking?

It’s been hard not to notice lately, I’ve been doing a lot of woodworking. What’s up with that, you may ask?

I’ve had an interest in doing this sort of thing for quite some time. A couple of years ago we got a small CNC mill from CNC Masters that was working great… until our lab was broken into one night and the mill was destroyed. It took a while to get the money to get some replacement parts, and some generosity from CNC Masters. And then we discovered it was broken than we anticipated.

So my plans were put on hold. And then, over this winter, we received three pieces of equipment from Haas. A mill, a lathe and a gantry mill. (It does big things) Hoorah! I finally have the machines I’ve been dreaming of for years. And they work, beautifully. They are *far* more precise than anything I reasonably need, but that’s how it works sometimes eh?

so I jumped right in with both feet. Wee! Let’s make things! And make things I have been doing. I’ve been working with a local sawmill who does recovery work – they gather trees that have fallen, they go into the Great Lakes and rescue wood that has been lost to the tiny seas. I take the pieces that don’t work for that they’re doing (kitchen cabinets) and turn them into artwork. The knots and grain that make it undesirable for a large, even countertop make it absolutely gorgeous in a piece of small artwork.

While they are made with a CNC machine they are definitely “handmade”: I design the patterns with the particular piece of wood in mind, work to get the best placement with the grain, and then plane and sand it by hand. I also paint them, seal them, and prepare them myself.

I have set up shop on Etsy! All of my woodworking is available there. Etsy’s a really awesome service and I’m happy to be a part of the giant Etsy cloud. I do custom orders – I love custom orders – so if you want a piece of artwork done just for you, let me know. I’d be happy to make something to your description and make a reserved item for you.

The items below are nine of the most recent items I’ve put up for sale, to give you an idea.

Check out my full page, browse around and please buy something! Sales of my artwork are a win-win for everybody: They help me out, they help out The Geek Group and you get a unique piece of artwork that will last for years.

Machine Shop

This week at work we got three beautiful new machines in… machines I am VERY excited about. A lathe, a mill and a router table – all CNC. What this means is that I’m going to be making a whole lot of exciting new things – real! tangible! things! – in the super near future. We have to wait until next week to actually use them, because the company rep needs to come set them up properly. (Silly machines – why did you have to arrive directly before Thanksgiving?)

In the meantime this meant we emptied out the machine shop and then filled it back up again. It’s so pretty in there now! It even has proper theatre lighting. Why put lighting in a machine shop you ask? To take photos of course… and video!  If you’ve ever had the desire for an entire series of videos featuring me telling you how to use CNC equipment, now is your chance – because I’m going to be hosting the bulk of the videos.

CNC is right up my alley, really. I’ve been using AutoCAD and 3D Studio Max for more years than I really care to admit, and an Adobe user since the beginning. Vectors and I go way back. Being a designer on a computer is a very strange process and often my entire project is done without ever touching something tangible. I’ve made drawings that have never seen paper (or canvas, etc) and I’ve poured hours and hours into website design. I have taken several hundred thousand photographs in the past 10 years and less than a few thousand paper copies exist of them. When you are a designer in the digital era, having your work exist in something tangible is incredibly exciting. The first time one of my illustrations became a full size banner I was a little giddy – I’d never made something that became a physically large object before.

So the first time I drew something on the computer and then had the CNC mill carve it out I was absolutely amazed. Rationally, I knew this wasn’t a huge deal: I drew the drawing, and then drew out the toolpaths on the computer, and the machine followed them. But it was sooooo cool! I drew it! And there it is! Carved in aluminum!

And I can do so much more than just draw into aluminum. You just wait and see.

In the meantime, check out the photos I took of the entire setup. It’s absolutely gorgeous in person.

[nggallery id=8]

Modernity.

I spend a lot of time thinking about design. The things I like, the things I hate, and everything in-between. Design encompasses a strikingly large part of my life: web design, clothing design, furniture design, architectural design, industrial design, project design, interior design, lighting design. Yep, I think that covers it.

I have always been drawn to particular types of design, even though my taste has varied and been refined dramatically over time. I remember the first time I saw artwork by Max Ernst. I was so taken aback, and at the same time so enthralled. I started researching his work and it didn’t take a lot of time before I discovered Marcel Duchamp and Bauhaus. So thank you Max Ernst, for teaching me about Bauhaus.

As soon as I started reading about the design movement sparked from Bauhaus, I knew I had finally found my design alignment. This is how it works, I find, for most people. You will stumble around liking different things and then trip over your own two feet and land face-first in the design movement you love, and it’s easy after that.

One of the biggest projects I presently have up my sleeve is miniature house design. You’re going to see a lot of it very soon, and it will be worth the wait I promise. I’ve been exceedingly happy to finally put that architecture training to good use and build some houses- albeit houses that are 1/12th the size you’d need for people.

In my quest to build some strong, striking houses I did what any person does anymore – I went to the internet and spent hours upon hours doing image searches. And what I kept finding was people showing me “contemporary” houses, not “modern” houses. This annoyed me because, honestly, I don’t think I’ve liked a single contemporary house that I saw.

Most contemporary houses are still quite traditional – they have traditional materials, the shapes are pretty standard  and the detail is way too fussy. Please do not put a six-panel door on a house and try to tell me it is in any way modern. Post-modern, sure, assuming the panels are made out of some fantastic material (mirrors maybe?) or arranged in a really stunning way.

“Contemporary” refers to “of the present”. Designs that are trendy. Now, a “trendy” design has a dramatically different lifespan depending on the subject matter, but in houses, trends tend to last a little over a decade.

“Modern” refers to those fabulous designs originating from Bauhaus. Clean, striking lines. Not a lot of ornamentation. Fantastic materials and bright colours. I think a lot more people would fall in love with modern homes if they were given the opportunity.

“Post-Modern” refers to designs that are a response to modernism. These tend to be houses that have a sense of humour.They include out-there details, fun colours, “art for art’s sake”. These designs are harder to sell en masse, generally, because they tend to be very personal. What one designer sees as a loving bit of quirky accents, a home buyer may see as a weird purple wavy ceiling.

I wish there were more modern buildings around. It is finally being embraced as a movement, which I have been hearing labelled “Modern Modernism”. Not as stark as the Bauhaus days, but certainly not as traditional as those silly contemporary buildings.

Do you have a favourite modern design? I’d love to see some examples. I’m knee-deep in tiny blueprints, and I’m going to start making some prototypes ASAP.

Dollhouse – Newport

The story of the Newport Dollhouse is long and agonising. I started building it 11 years ago .. ! At some point it got packed up and tucked away for a long time while I persued other hobbies and lived in places that did not easily have space for giant miniature houses.

I got it back last year, though, and have been working on it on and off. I had quite a few fits with it – my taste in style has changed wildly since I began working on it. I would have left well enough alone except it had never been finished, and I no longer had the paint to match it.

So the poor house went through 8 different coats of paint. When I took it back up last week it looked like this:

As you can see I reconsidered the colour of it more than once.

I taped everything off:

And then hit it with spray paint:

Taped everything off again, so that I could paint the trim and I ended up with this:

I also ripped off the old shingles, which I hated pretty badly (Also I had not finished shingling the roof and was missing a bunch – that played a very large part in this decision.) I covered the roof in roof tar. It looks nice and should be cured in a week or so. (In the meantime my studio smells fierce…)

I did not change the interior, though. I can’t… that’s how it will always look to me. I have tried playing around with different furniture in it and I just can’t do it. (I have enough furniture to fill 12 dollhouses, which may or may not be because I’ve built 12 dollhouses.)

A tour of the inside:

The living room/entry room. Can you spot the magazines in the rack and the books on the sofa? You can’t see it because of the coat-rack, alas, but there is also mail on the side table.

The dining room. A very difficult room to capture because it sits behind the kitchen. In retrospect I would use a different wallcovering. This is not formal at all and I’m not sure why I painted the trim green, other than the fact that the wallpaper has green in it. I love the dining room because the table is set properly. It’s this kind of detail I love.

The kitchen is my least favourite room – it has very poor placement but is the best you can get with the design of the house. Open-backed houses are really awkward to design around. I do love that there is a pile of dishes in the sink. If you look closely you’ll even see some homework on the kitchen table, complete with a (to-scale) ruler. Tiny geometry!

Upstairs is the main bedroom. Also not my taste anymore, but I still like it. You’ll notice the door is ajar – the doors all open and the knobs are drilled through.

The music room. I was very excited about this room when I made it.. I love the wallpaper (still!) and I think the mix of so many woods is very exotic. There are quite a few little instruments in this room, including an organ. It was a pipe organ; I took the pipes off.

Stairwell. I did not get a photo of the room it leads up to, because it’s nothing special. The Newport layout is a little weird and does not really give you any room to move around. So this is kind of the clutter room.

In the attic is the office/sewing room. See the little spools of thread? The chair is one of my favourite pieces, the wheels move on the bottom! I also love the filing cabinet, it’s not something you see that often.

The bath. It has really awful placement and I’m not sure why they put the walls there..? It also feels weird to me to have a house without a bathroom, so it went into the weird room. This house was the beginning of my obsession with bathrooms… you can either get the large, clunky porcelain sets or the wood ones like this. This is a very pretty set (I love the stopper in the tub, by the way) but it is quite old fashioned. We can certainly do better…

And lastly, the girls’ room. I recovered the beds to have the same fabric as the ceiling and the table. I love how coordinated it all is. I also love the little dollhouse. it’s 1:144 scale, which means it is dollscale-scale to the dollhouse. The inside is decorated, too, though I don’t have any furniture for it.

And this is the Newport! It’s one of the biggest, more impressive dollhouse kits that I have ever seen. I’m not sure if it is the biggest I’ve ever made, though, I’d have to go through my collection. I like big houses.

If I was starting this from the beginning today, it’d look very different. But I’m still quite happy with it now, and I’m very happy to put it on my completed list!