I watched Sailrite’s Market Tote howto which was the basis for the Insulated trix or treat tote bag. The Halloween color scheme was great. You got to have a way to keep the beer cold while your trick or treating.
I had been trying the blue apron meals for recipe ideas. However there was a lot of packaging in getting meal ingredients delivered. It piles up when you don’t have curb side recycling. Well the knock off reflectix was just begging for a project not quite electronics upcycling but recycling is good.
recycling the Blue apron packing
The tote was kind of built on the fly. It is hard to make a pattern when using scraps and recycling materials. It came out pretty nice. A bit crooked on one seam as the faux leatherette slipped a bit. I will need some more projects before I get into the fresh leather. You don’t want to make a mistake in leather and have extra holes.
My interest in Leather Craft had led me get a walking foot sewing machine. I looked at the big commercial units used. However I went for the portable Sailrite LSZ-1. Since I already got the pile of hand me downs machines including the “sweat shop” Singer 241-12, A Sears Kenmore 148.295 from my Mom, and my grandma gave me a Singer 690U, which are all is some need of tuning and repair. I went new and have been having a blast.
I ordered a Box of Fabric for Sailrite to have some things to test before getting into the leather. It has been fun to get the surprise box and there were a lot of fun projects spawned from it. The first was the little lined zipper pouch to keep the tools in for the LSZ-1 made from some faux leather which I suspect is vinyl. I got some duck canvas for the lining which spawned the second project. The roll top stuff sack to keep my fleece sweater in.
Stuff sack.
Because I love the simplicity of the roll top bag. This led to project number three. I made a insulated market tote with some of the remnants from the box, and some knock off reflectix from the blue apron packaging. It has more of the faux leather/vinyl on the outside to protect the insulation and make it more durable.
So I went down another rabbit hole. I have an old wallet that is falling apart, but cannot find one that fulfills my desires, wants, or needs. We all know where this goes…. One starter set of tools later and now I have yet another hobby making things.
I will admit that the tin foil hat protection provided by RF shielding backed by Tyvex liner is nice. I do not know why my bank insist on sending me a debit card with “tap to steal” contacts in it.
Layers to make it modern.
I built an NFC /RFC panel just to collect and test that. It is easier than you think and people walk by these readers all the time without thought. I started that paranoia when reading the door access logs at one of my day jobs and seeing CC data in there. Is that system PCI complaint? Now I make wallets with RF shielding built-in because I lack trust. I see people bump their wallet and bags on the readers at offices all the time.
This initial test wallet has to be the thickest and you cannot sit on it for long. I don’t know what I was thinking with 5-6 ounce veg tanned leather, when doubled up it is almost 6mm or about 1/4 inch thick. It will last forever though.
A first for me was using Fiebings Antique Stain in tan to dye the raw leather. I think I got a pretty uniform color that looks great. I am already looking forward to my next revision that will be a touch smaller.
Now that I have a mini bench to work on. More projects arise. I decided I would like some marking gauges, and being too cheap to part with over 20 kongbucks for one. I saw Stumpy Nubs video on homemade marking gauges. Again my monkey see monkey do kicked in. I was out tool shopping and splurged on an 7 kongbuck piece of mahogany. I had some red oak, and a hardwood dowel leftover in the garage from other past projects.
fine chocolate shavings for the truffles.
A little glue to get some thicker pieces and some Ryoba saw action to get the 12 inch beams. The pieces were ready for the mortises which I need the practice on if you saw mini bench you know I need the practice.
glued the bodies to make them thicker
Well practice practice practice makes you better. I’ll need much more before I can claim good let alone perfect. A few brad nails for the scoring pins and onward to wax and make them feel good in the hand and add a bit more protection than the leftover Danish Oil from my hand’s oil.
ready set wax on…
Onward to more projects in wood. I’m curious why the oak beam turned out so white while the oak block has the red tint. cut from the same piece of wood. Beautiful contrast either way.
Everyone knows I have too many hobbies working with the lasercutter has caused me to consider woodworking again. I suspect there is a Maslow CNC in my future, but in the mean time. I watched a ton of YouTube and saw this mini bench which started a flurry of copies videos.
Monkey See Monkey do kicked in, and I could not help myself, but I’m a cheap skate so no exotic woods for me. Four x $2.80 “white wood” studs from the orange box store later. I have my version of the mini bench. Why so cheap? Well a newb should not waste precious trees to learn on.
When I did wood working in the past I had a mentor, not now unless you count Essential Woodworking Hand Tools a wonderful book by Paul Sellers. I bought the book and Highly recommend it. He also has a ton of very informational videos sharing his vast knowledge in an easy to understand manner, on YouTube or available at his site https://paulsellers.com/ I only wish his DVD’s came in the US region encoding, but I will survive on internet versions. Much respect for someone who shares their knowledge and life lessons freely. It makes us all better in the end.
I snagged a 6-1/2” Woodworking Vise with Bench Dog for $20 kongbucks to finish of the cheap build. It works great onto of my Kreg portable workstation. I left the sliding tail legs long so it would clamp down on top. A single row of holes in the mini bench work with the vice in a tail position and the portable workstation’s included bench dogs. Now with a place and a way to hold projects let more projects begin.
I learned a ton which is the whole point of making things. Success with the jig to cut sliding dove tails without a table saw, When I revisit this build. I plan to cut them by hand with the lessons I’ve learned. The tails came out straight and uniform. Not so much success for the mortise or pins portion. The make shift fence jig slipped and the gap was ugly in the front. However the overall fit was very snug and took a mallet to get it all the way home.
Since the “white wood” is soft I did a few coats of Danish Oil to help protect it, but expect a work surface to take a beating. Maybe I’ll do southern yellow pine on the next one.
cutting sliding dovetails without a table saw.Large scale sliding dovetails cut with crazy jig.
I got to spend some time with the laser cutter to test the engraving intensity gradient. I threw in some cutting test in the final panel to test the inside dimensions of the cuts as well as the viable thickness of remaining material. This was mainly done as a test of the Cohesion3D Mini upgrade with the LightBurn software. The combination of these two tools is a great addition to Orion K40 laser cutter. I will provide more details on both once on the controller and software in upcoming post, but I like them a lot, and have lots of plans for more upgrades involving them.
I did run into a small issue I suspect is a binding on the X axis, but want to ensure I follow up on all possibilities. The image below shows some X axis dimensions loss in the center and right most panels in the final operations. It is square but looks like some steps skipped and or were lost in the processing due to the testing of increasing mm/second. I hope to find the issue with further testing. Is it skipping steps or binding….
in the laser cutter
The positive note is that the kerf on a CO2 laser cut is tiny < 0.04. The dimensions of the squares removed from the right most column outside dimensions (OD), and the inside dimensions (ID) of the holes, are all very spot on for size. Much more consistent that 3D printing with filament. The long rectangular cut outs reveal a 0.5 mm, 1.0 mm, 2.0 mm, 3.0 mm, and 4.0mm bars left in the material after the cut pieces were removed. the bars were slightly out of place due to the X motion skips but. still square and strait.
The testing of concentric circles was also very good.
I keep adding more tools to my tool box, and expanding the knowledge of the tools already in use. It is why I have some many projects going on. I want to learn new things or more about things I already know. I continue to invest in learning FreeCAD. The tool amazes me, each time I use it. I find it better and easier to use. Practice practice practice… Pick a tool and use it. Well I’ve been tinkering with Tinkercad too, but with some residual AutoCAD skills from my school days. I am more comfortable in the FreeCAD interface and methodologies.
I had always used OpenSCAD either standalone on in FreeCAD workbench, as my go to design tool. Today I started testing an new module LCInterlocking for FreeCAD. It is why the open source community is so great. Great tool and then people invest their time to make modules for it to make it greater. This tool seamlessly integrated into FreeCAD and has its own workbench and easy to follow video tutorials.
I still need to work on my Industrial Design but the new box has better tab strength and a slot for all connection access. It is a little less visually appealing, but I though the original revision the tabs were too small. The kerf on the cut was too tight and the box was very tight to assemble. I may need to adjust the laser cutter’s focal length to prevent tapper in the cuts.
I know what your thinking. I should have added a place to include the switches in the box with access like these. That is why you build projects to learn new tools and how to best utilize them. I will just use the painter’s tape to hold them on top for now.
I am not an industrial designer, but I need to refresh some of the basics basics. I had gotten a driver board for some old LCD screens that were salvaged from a Lenovo W510 laptop which overheated. It was a great panel with high resolution and good black. The driver board was great and easy to use, but lacked any case. I have been using it as an extra display for configuring my Ordoid and Raspberry Pi’s prior to adding them to the cluster. I found it much handier that a full monitor for quick an easy configuration.
Now that I have a laser cutter I can make custom cases for project so I don’t have to leave things like the driver board on my desk like a hazard. I mainly use FreeCAD, but prefer OpenSCAD for 3D part creation . I have not yet reviewed or updated sheet metal fabrication and card stock box techniques into the CAD world. I had learned back in the mechanical drafting classes taken in my past. Yes I’m old enough to have taken pencil and paper drafting classes. I guess that will have to be updated. What to do to create plans for cases….
I headed over to MakerCase to build a box. If you have not used their tool it is super easy, and has great results as you can see. However, my ability to measure and line up the ports was lacking. I also missed the check box for “inside dimensions” so a bit tight. My only reservation about the tool is there is not size control on the output. That is a minor inconvenience that InkScape fixed right up.
I wonder if I should do a rev 0.2…. For another day….
When you get a new tool you want to put it to work right away, so i’m no different and made raspberry pi cases right out of the gate before doing more formal testing. I got the import laser cutter as a starting place from Amazon. Please use link below. It was well packed and shipped from California instead of overseas, so delivery was quick.
The object I used to first test was Thingiverse thing 679809 it is a great case. I did two in 3mm birch plywood and one in acrylic. They came out nice the discount acrylic was a little thin so the case is a bit loose, but not too bad. Wood cases were cut at 40%@40mm/sec and took two passes. The Acrylic was cut at 60%@40mm/sec and took 3 passes. I will definitely have to learn the best settings for the new laser cutter.
I will resume formal testing and adjustment of speeds and feeds. I will also start documenting the upgrades I did to make the laser cutter mine. This site is about tinkering after all so even if the cutter came complete ready to go. I still had some upgrades in mind already when I bought it.
Well I started getting serious about print quality, so here is a sample of the attempt to print the 3DBenchy test. It took a few tries to get the roof overhang to print, but it came out nice. SD3 always had issues with inside dimensions, but tuning has gotten it closer that ever.
