Year: 2017

Christmas Ornaments

A few years ago I made a bunch of little bird house xmas ornaments on the lathe, and gave them out at our family Christmas party. Every year since, I've wanted to do something similar again but couldn't find the time to make all of those ornaments. This year I tried something different - all of these were made on either the 3D printer or the CNC machine. Some of the wooden ones still need a little sanding and some lacquer, but overall they came out pretty cool, I think.

Leather Notebook Covers

To play around with leatherworking a bit more, I made myself a couple of leather covers for Moleskine notebooks. I haven't done the edge treatment on them yet, but they came out ok. I like the character and texture in the leather in the right-hand one, but fastening strap is a little wimpy and I'm afraid the snap might pull right out of it someday. The one on the left has a better closure, and the color is nice and even.

Laser Engraver – Take 2

This is take two of the laser engraver, rebuilt from the ground up. The old one used to bind up a lot on the x axis, and had a limited work area. With this one, I've used what I learned on the CNC machine to rebuild it. This one is far more reliable, and doesn't seem to have any binding issues at all. I've also hidden away all of the wiring this time, and included a control panel with an emergency stop button, control for each of the (two) fans, and a laser override button, so I can force the laser off when necessary.