Design

Book End Designs: Part 1

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I recently came up with an idea for creating book ends. There are so many designs out there already but I was most interested in exploring the ones that have a metal “tongue” embedded into them. I posed the question “Could I create this style of design with a single 3d printed part?” If so, I could simply 3d print a book end and then cut out a bit of sheet metal for the “tongue”.

If the tongue is bent into an ‘L’ shape it can be easily inserted into the 3d printed housing.

After figuring out the tolerances and coming up with different examples, this would be a reasonably easy design to reproduce and it would be more sturdy than a 3D printed book end would be on its own.

The first design I created was a Roman Pillar:

A cross section view of the pillar shows the ‘L’ shaped tongue:

Lightsaber Wall Hooks

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Laser Cutting Project

A good friend of mine needed something to mount his lightsaber over his desk. Happy to have an excuse to use the laser cutter I offered to help. I asked for some basic dimensions and then quickly modeled a hook that could be easily cut from acrylic and assembled in two parts. This could also be done with 3D printing but I think the acylic has a much more refined look.

The final look turned out quite good! But I would use thicker acrylic next time. 3/16″ is just a bit too thin and I had to re-cut because it cracked when I tried to join the pieces.

FJ Cruiser Customization

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Modular Storage System

Here’s a fun summer project I did to add some extra storage and a sleeping space to my FJ.

I started by getting measurements of different parts of the truck bed.

It has a lot of irregular shapes because the seats pushed down cause a slope which makes building a flat frame difficult.

As the dimensions became more complex I soon found that I needed to do more 3D represenations so a rough isometric view helped to figure out how all the parts would fit together.

I then found materials and cut to size. Most of the materials were used from salvaged plywood and boards but I did need to buy some long bolts and some carpet for the surface.

The finished design! All camping gear stored neatly underneath.