Tag Archives: craft

hexacon. well, hexapod jewelry and then someday a post about hexacon

i wanted to make jewelry
i also need prizes for saturday’s hexacon
hexacon2013.mit.edu
hexacon2013.eventbrite.com

bought some supplies from http://www.yelp.com/biz/artist-and-craftsman-supply-cambridge, then lasercut some hexapods from a vector SVG file of my hexapod CAD files

I added some lock washers and made them asymmetrical, because I miss the ones that +Hanna Lin made for me a while back that look like this, but prettier and more functional.

lock washer source, MITERS.mit.edu
Fatal flaw of acrylic jewelry: it only wants to face one direction, sideways, by default (I twisted it around to take this picture). Ah well. A puntly-hour’s worth of work.

acrylic bracelets, lasercut cards, red bull contest

acrylic bracelets

I woke up early one day and tested this instructables before class:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Acrylic-bracelets/

I was tempted to skip class and lasercut things, but I did not! (It’s an music theory 101 class, 21M.301, that I’m listening in on and am completely lost in at this point).

The first one I cut was about 8.5” x 2” and I made it in coreldraw. I wanted to put a hexapod in the middle but couldn’t find a png at the time.

Here are the lasercutter settings I used for a epilog 120w lasercutter to cut/engrave 3mm acrylic:
600 dpi, vector
cut: 25 speed 100 power
engrave (the words): 70 speed 30 power

The narwhal refused to cut as a vector so it’s not in the bracelet (I selected bracelet only).

cut it out of transparent acrylic (shown here with the paper covering not peeled off yet)
So actually the pointy tip snapped off when I was bending it. I made a too-tight radius so this actually helped allow the bracelet to be wearable because I can slip my wrist through the crack. The next time around, though, I made sure to start bending at the pointy end first. This step just requires patience, aim the heat gun, wait a minute, and then the acrylic should be super bendy, at which point I can move the gun up the acrylic and press down all the while to get a nice curve. And then having the patient to wait for it to cool while holding it in place.
I also learned to bend it on a clean surface as the hot acrylic picked up all the gunk on the mat.
I was also too hasty in putting this on to check whether it would go on or not and ended up with a small burn. So… be careful. Hopefully this doesn’t scar like the forging-iron-chopsticks one (which is actually pretty faded from two years ago).
I did a second one which was closer to 9” long.
This one retained the corner, but is also bent too tight. It is extremely hard to put on and actually took off skin.

I didn’t know what to put so here is a cheery message:

Ignore the black spraypaint, I was stenciling.

lasercut cards

I finished up my lasercut birthday gift to cathy wu after two weeks -__-;;; with a lasercut card. She likes giraffes so I borrowed an image from the internet (see image below for source link).
Lasercutter settings for construction paper: 600dpi vector, 100 speed 5 power (120w epilog).
materials used:
about that awesome spray-on adhesive, yea fail, I used too much and then placed it incorrectly so had to redo
I ended up using http://www.fontspring.com/fonts/typodermic/rafika which has a free version.
some finishing touches with a razor were required, and I used tape to pick up the stencils which you can see didn’t all come out cleanly:
I think it turned out well. @__@ I hope +Cathy Wu likes it.

red bull competition

I’m probably not entering, but they sent me free LED stuff to play with. I thought their theme was micro or nano or something so I was excited, because I thought they would send me something related to diy nano but I guess not.
Interesting box design (this came inside an actual shipping box):
looks like they contracted out to a company that makes lasercut things, and that this is meant to be wall-hang-able:

laptop sleeve… am i a hipster now

i acquired a new laptop (gently used by relatives)
consumerism ftw

i’m trying not to destroy this one

i impromptu decided I should make a laptop bag, having spotted a bag of cloth i picked up off reuse last semester, and deciding i need a laptop bag right now because two days is too long to wait

http://www.ispydiy.com/2012/08/my-diy-envelope-laptop-case.html

[x] img src

that made it seem so easy, like something i could finish in 15 minutes

well
i went to MITERS and turns out we don’t have fabric glue. so i decided this would be an excellent opportunity to learn to use the really cool sewing machine we have! i also picked up an old shirt and some strips of leather lying around MITERS (on top of the lathe — turns out we have a good selection of odds and ends of material)

This sewing machine is so amazing. It’s actually very clearly laid out, with instructions screenprinted right on the machine, and alkdjbnwet just amazing. It has this bobbin winder on top which works like a charm and maybe I will go back and take a picture of it. Actually no here’s a video: http://youtu.be/lDiTi6C-66Q?t=2m16s which shows how it will mechanically “automagically” stop winding when the bobbin is full.

The manual is very clear too.

anyway, in retrospect I cut the triangle very off-center. it looked roughly even at the time. whatever.

i also used the strips of leather for padding on the sides. I’m most worried about putting it in my bookbag and the corners/hinges getting damaged when I forget and set my bookbag none too gently. I don’t know if this is an actual cause of damage but for my own ease of mind…

i wish i’d found two shirts because i ended up only padding one side because I was getting tired of my emergency project. also lol it turned out so derpy but i am owning up to derpy projects because i feel like it would have encourage me as a beginning project doer ^__^

i made the strap with some velcro i sewed on.

one thing i would change going back is cutting it a little closer to form — it tends to slip so that the leather strips aren’t protecting the ends but rather the edges of the laptop.

project took 2.5 hours in total