Intro to Fabrication • Nasif's ITP Blog

Week 05 & 06

These last two weeks of the course were focused on the final assignment: fabricating and object that uses two materials and fasteners. For this one, I wanted to experiment with bent metal tubes to create legs for a wooden table.

Sketch of a table with twisting legs. — This was the initial design for the table. After talking to Phil and analyzing the possibilities, it was evident that these bends would be very complicated to make.

Sketch of a stool with metal tube legs. — This was a different idea, making it a stool instead of a table. In order to get the legs in with that angle, I would have had to make some angled holes and split the top in half, which was going to be a very precise operation.

After these sketches and discussing the idea with Phil and Niko, I decided to do a blend of the ideas, to simplify the fabrication process a bit.

1/2 inch metal conduit tubes. — These were the tubes to be used for the legs. They are usually used in high quantities for electrical work, so buying just a few was not too expensive.

Man bending conduit tubes. — A picture of me bending the tubes. Here you can see me doing it wrong, because I thought placing my foot on the tool was not necessary. However, it is imperative to get a correct bend. Otherwise the tube can move and mess up the bend.

Badly-bent metal tubes. — This was the result of those wrong bends. Also, after show it to Phil, he also believed I was too ambitious trying to get a fully rounded 90 degree bend, which might not be possible with this tool.

Bent metal tubes. — I rewatched the maker pipe bending tutorial very carefully and placed the correct markers on the tube. Then I bent them and got this result.

Cut-off end of metal tubes — I used a metal hack saw to cut the extra tube on one side to level out the legs.

Two bent metal tubes on a piece of white paper — I then roughly wet-sanded the legs with 320 grit, in preparation for painting.

Two bent metal tubes hanging from the paint booth. — I hung the legs from the booth in order to paint them completely without having to do one side and then the other side.

Orange metal legs handing upside down. — I then hung them on the side of the drying shelves.

Orange metal legs on a table. — Two days later I picked them up and the paint had a very nice texture. Although, because I didn't have enough time to use the primer or the clear coat, the finish is somewhat fragile.

In parallel, I was also working on the tabletop, made out of a solid wood plank.

Long wood plank with markings for holes. — I bought a wooden plank and decided to make the table the exact size of the plank. I started by roughly sanding the plank and then making the markings for the 4 holes.

Pieces of wood clamped to the bed of a drill press, fashioning a jig. — I made a jig to keep the holes 20mm away from the edges of the wood plank.

Hole on a wood plank. — The holes made by the jig fit exactly in the markings I made. Very satisfying.

Metal table legs going through a wooden plank. — At this stage, I tested the fit of the legs in the table.

Ruler on top of a bent metal table leg. — I measured the length of the bend on the table leg, to figure out the size of the slots required so that the legs could go through and sit on top of the tabletop.

Markings on a plank of wood, going from one hole to another. — I measured and marked the different parts of the slots to be machined, and then cut holes on the ends of each slot.

At this point I had to use the router in order to make the channel and the slots through which the legs would pass. Although I had gone through the demo, I was a bit unsure of using the router, so I asked my friend Niko for some guidance.

Wood clamped around a larger plank of wood making a slim channel. — We clamped long pieces of wood on both sides to create a channel that would guide the router bit.

A plank of wood with a channel running across it. — This is the resulting channel created using that setup. I then clamped the piece of wood on its own hanging over the side of the table, and used the router directly over it for the slots that had to go through.

Plank of wood with two holes on each side and a channel running through them. — Once this was all done, I used the roundover bit all around the tabletop. I also sanded the wood up to 600 grit and then added a few light coats of tung oil, buffing it out with a rag to make it shine a bit more.

Finally, I figured out how to fasten the legs to the tabletop.

Box of self drilling screws. — I bought these self drilling wood-to-metal screws in the smallest length they offered. However, according to my calculations, they were a bit longer than what I needed. So I tried to make some wooden spacers for them, but they didn't work very well and the screws didn't grip the metal.

Self drilling screw with the tap cut off. — In the end, I decided to use the screw to make the hole in the metal legs, and then take it out, cut the drilling part off, and then screw it into the metal legs. This way, the screw was no longer too long.

Wooden table with screw going through it and its metal legs. — This is what that looked like. It was very difficult to get the legs to be perfectly aligned.

With that I was done:

Wooden table with orange metal legs. — The final piece. Because of the difficulty aligning the legs, one of them was a bit longer which made the table wobble a little bit.

Week 04

This fourth week was dedicated to enclosures, using the techniques we have learnt plus possibly the router. I decided I wanted to make a flashlight, which was ambicious in hindsight, given the limited time.

Sketch of a flashlight. — The design I made for it was a simple dowel as a handle and a larger cone-shaped piece for the light to project out of. From the base of the handle pops out a small dowel with a sphere, which can be pulled/pushed to dim the flashlight.

Section view sketch of a flashlight. — I made some measurements (which would later change) based on the way I would structure the inside. The idea was to have the interior lined with plastic tubing. The piston would pass through a plug that fits tightly into the tube. It then keeps going and grabs hold of the bottom of an upside down slider. The wiper on the slider is held in place as it is mounted on the tubing lining.

After planning out the logistics with the help of Phil, I went on with getting the parts to be enclosed.

Flashlight pieces on a cutting mat. — I bought a cheap flashlight and tore it apart into its constituents.

Front view of a small circuit board. — I analyzed the circuit to understand how it worked, since the flashlight had 5 different modes. It basically consisted of the LED and an IC that controlled those modes. As I couldn't find a datasheet for the IC, I assumed it was a custom solution for this product. So I then decided to desolder the ic and the button, and leave only the LED and battery terminals.

I built a simple circuit using a mosfet to control the dimming of the flashlight. The beauty of it is that the mosftet takes negligible current to control, so when the resistance of the potentiometer is very high, basically no current is being used, saving battery power.

Makeshift circuit with a transistor. — I then soldered the circuit trying to keep the smallest footprint possible.

Small electronic terminals. — I decided to use these terminals for the connection to the potentiometer, since I wanted it to be easy to disconnect if the need arises, so that this piece can fully come out of the flashlight.

Slider potentiometer pushed into the wall of a plastic tube. — Small test trying out the idea of holding the potentiometer from the taper by pushing it into a small cut on the side of the tube.

3D printed disk. — 3D printed plug for the tube, which would hold the piston steady.

I then moved onto one of the big challenges of this build: hollowing out the handle.

Dowel broken into pieces. — This is the first test I did cutting into the cyling with a spade bit (since it was the longest one). After this one, I managed to cut into one of this small test cylindes.

Piece of wood with a large circle drilled out of it. — I made a jig that would accomodate the dowel.

Long dowel being held by vise. — Holding the dowel on the jig with the vise.

Wooden dowel with a tear in the middle. — Another failed test, still using the spade bit with a bit extender. At this point I realized that the bit extender was really imprecise and very tricky to get it to go deep in a perfectly straight line.

A block of wood with a hole in the center, cut lengthwise to expose both sides of the hole. — I made a new larger jig that could give more stability.

Dowel with a glove finger on the bottom. — Kai instructed me to use a glove to add even more friction and keep the wood steady in the jig.

Long spade bit mounted on the bench press over a dowel clamped down lengthwise. — I also decided to buy a long spade bit, as I believed it would be more stable than the bit extender.

Dowel with a lengthwise hole and a crack down the side with a tear at the bottom. — Although deeper, this new test also broke the wall of the dowel, which meant it was still going in at a slight angle that would eventually eat up on the walls.

A dowel with a small and shallow center hole drilled lengthwise on the base. — I made a pilot hole on the base and used it to place the clamped dowel as center as I could with the spade bit, trying to get as close as possible to a perfectly straight cut.

A wooden dowel with a long hole lengthwise. — Finally this worked. It still went in at an angle because, when looking in, one of the walls at the bottom lets in more light than the others.

Once the first challenge was overcome, after spending two days on it, I started working on the cone for the projector.

Small block of wood. — Started by cutting and squaring out a block of wood as best I could, in the dimensions of the projector.

Wooden decagonal prism on the band saw. — I printed a decagon the size I wanted and taped it to the piece, which I used as a guide cutting it out on the band saw.

Wooden decagonal prism on the belt sander. — I then sanded it down, taking care to maintain the faces that I wanted for the final piece.

Wooden dowel inserted into a wooden decagonal prism. — I also made all the holes from my diagrams and tested out the fit with the handle. Initially I wanted to do a dovetail joint but I scrapped that for the time being.

Hands carving a piece of wood. — Since I wanted this piece to taper down, my friend Niko lent me his wood carving tools and taught me how to achieve this. This way I could maintain the faces instead of rounding it out.

A conic decagonal prism. — I printed another decagon, smaller, to use as a guide on the side that was to be smaller. I then carved it down to that size, but I still wanted it closer to the handle size, so I printed a new decagon and kept going.

A conic decagonal prism with a wooden dowel coming out of it. — The piece after carving it down to the desired size.

Once this part was done, I sanded it all down to 400 grit to give it a better finish.

Unfortunately the week was over by this point, so I will have to continue past the deadline.

Week 03

For the third week we had to work with the laser cutter, making the same piece in two different scales, and using some sort of joinery.

I really struggled with this assignment since I very much dislike the way laser cut wood smells and looks, and sanding does not really help if you need the precision of the laser cuts, which is its main appeal. After wasting a lot of time thinking around this, I settled with making a more decorative than useful piece: fridge magnets.

Geometrical design of a rug, by Anni Albers. — I was inspired by the work of Anni Albers, which is why I thought about making a geometrical design joining laser cut wood and acrylic.

Vector geometrical patterns in blue. — I tested some vector patterns in illustrator and ultimately opted for the square grid on the bottom, especially because I was unsure about how strong the wood was going to be with very thin lines.

I began by preparing the wood and buying the right acrylic:

Large block of wood on the band saw with a slice taken off. — I sliced off a long plank of wood off of my large wood block, trying to approximate a 1/8in depth, same as the acrylic I had bought.

A long plank of pine wood. — I squared out the plank as best I could and sanded with 100 grit to get a clean uniform surface.

Once the materials were ready, I began testing the laser cutting and the curf.

Wood plank with a square hole cut out. A hand hold the cut out piece. — I began by making a square hole the same size of my design. I also measured the actual size of the hole and laser cut an equivalent piece in acrylic.

Digital calliper measuring a small blue square reads 4.01mm. A computer screen in the background reads 4.267mm. — The acrylic piece I cut was too small, which allowed me to calculate how much was lost on the cutting operation. I then re cut the square.

Small blue acrylic square inserted into wooden plank — The newly cut square fit, although a bit too snuggly. In hindsight I should've kept testing at this stage but I was satisfied with this result.

With my tests done (or so I thought) I began making the actual cuts

Square grid etched with laser onto a wooden plank. — My first cut did not fully go through. Because my test cut before with the same settings in the same machine had gone through easily, I trusted this was the case again and removed the material.

Square grids cut out of a wooden plank. — I redid the cuts in a new area, running the machine two times. It still did not cut through some squares. You can see that the incomplete cuts are always in the darker area of the wood, which makes me think this part is stronger. I sanded it down and scraped out the squares that were not cut through.

Two wooden pieces with square grids on the miter saw. — I cut the pieces down to size using the miter saw, leaving a small gap to sand down.

Two wooden pieces with square grids and a longer wooden plank. — I then sanded down the sides and sanded the top surface to 400 grit.

Acrylic on the bed of a laser cutter. A strip of tape is being used to take out small square cutouts. — I cut out the squares and used some tape to recover the pieces so they would not fall down the grates.

I also laser cut the larger squares for the larger version of the piece (which was like a zoom-in on the pattern). I used the same calculation of the curf for these pieces. With that ready, I started the assembly.

Small wooden square with a 4 by 4 grid of squares, filled with acrylic pieces. Cracks on the perimeter of the wood are visible. — Upon adding the inserts, I realized they were exerting too much pressure on the wood and even caused some cracks. In hindsight, I shouldn't have sanded down the piece to size until it was fully assembled.

Small wooden square with a 4 by 4 grid of squares, filled with acrylic pieces. Being held with a clamp. — I tested new sizes for both the small and large squares and then recut them. I also used some glue to fix the cracks.

Small wooden piece with a grid of 8 by 8 squares filled in by acrylic squares. Small cracks are visible on the sides. — I assembled the small piece with the newly cut squares. Some fit easily, others required more force. Some small cracks are also visible on the perimeter but none as severe as with the larger piece.

With this, my decorative pieces were done. I would then wait for the glue to set and stick a magnetic film to the back.

Week 02

This week we were assigned with making 5 identical pieces. An exercise in repeatability and techniques like the use of jigs or stop-blocks. Since I've been thinking of buying some hangers for the apartment, I decided to make my own.

Sketches on a piece of paper, depicting variations on wooden hangers. — I began making some sketches. Since my theme are boolean operations, I want to make my pieces using mainly joinery, which can also be decorative.

I began by working on the main block of the hangers. First I sanded the block up to 400 grit on all side except the ends.

Long piece of wood split in half in the band saw. — I used the bad saw to split the wood in half lengthwise.

A compound miter saw with a block clamped to its side and another ready to be cut. — I then measured the length of each block and used the measurement to adjust a stop-block on the compund miter saw. With it I cut all my blocks to size.

Six small blocks of wood of identical sizes. — Once cut, I sanded the new edges up to 400 grit.

I then worked on the hole which would join the dowels to the main piece.

Jig on a vice under a bench press. — I set up a jig with a scrap piece of wood that had a diagonal cut on it. I used tape to hold a base block so the blocks to drill would have the same starting point when lying on the inclined plane.

5 blocks of wood with a hole. — These were the results.

Afterwards, I worked on the dowel pieces of the hangers.

A block clamped on the compound miter saw and a small dowel ready to be cut. — I measured the size of the hangers that I wanted (taking into account the parts to be lost in the joinery) and cut them in the miter saw with help of a stop-block.

6 dowels of the same length. — The resulting dowels.

Bench drill drilling onto the top side of a dowel. — I used the bench drill to very carefully make holes into the dowel from the top, as to fit the smaller dowels inside. I couldn't really figure out a good way to make a jig for these. In retrospect, I should have set the bit on the vise below and the dowels held by the press teeth.

6 dowels, each with a smaller dowel placed inside from the top. — Once they all fit nicely, I glued them down.

6 dowels, each going through a wood sphere. — I also made countersunk holes in the cedar wood spheres. Once again, I now realize I should have held these in the press teeth and had the bit be on the bottom held by the vise.

A dowel going through a sphere, rotating in a bench press. — Once dry, I put them in the bench press to sand them as if it were a lathe. Since they weren't perfectly center, it didn't work perfectly.

With all the pieces ready for assembly, I prepared the straps from the design. My friend Bethany very kindly gave me different colors of leather that she had and explained to me how to work with them.

5 leather strips with holes on the ends. — I cut the straps with a box cutter, and then made the holes, using the first hole I made as a guide for the rest of them.

5 dowels, each going through a wooden sphere and a leather strap on two ends. — Then I put the dowels through the straps.

A block of wood with a diagonal dowel coming out of it, clamped down on a vise. — I added some glue in the holes, clamped the base block down and used a mallet to hammer in the dowels. Sadly, the hole I had made was a little bit too small, so I could not push the dowels all the way to the other side, no matter how much force I used.

Lastly, I finished the hangers.

5 wooden hangers on a blue cutting mat, with a saw next to them. — I used a saw to cut the excess dowel from the spheres.

I also sanded down the spheres after the cut, up to 400 grit, and then added some tung oil as a finish.

Week 01

For the first week we had to make a simple box out of one piece of wood. Since this was the only assignment that didn't necessarily need to fit the chosen theme, I decided to take it as a low-stakes way to get into the groove of making while I decided what my theme for the other assignments would be.

A long block of wood. A tag stuck on it reads 'Vertical/Tube' and contact details. — I found this long block of wood and claimed it, as it seemed that it would be really good for the wood lathe in the future.

Block of wood being cut on the compound miter saw. — I cut a piece off the block on the compound miter saw so it would be easier to work with..

A block of wood with lines and markings made with a pencil. — Once I had this piece, I decided I really wanted my box to be more like a cube. I made some measurements and marking for the cuts and the screwhole.

A block of wood being cut in the band saw. — I cut the block once more to my desired size.

Once the block was the right size, I proceeded with the hole for the screw. I really didn't want the screw to be visible so I planned to cover it up with a wood plug.

A cube-like piece of wood being drilled on the bench press, on its top right corner. — I made the deep hole for the screw to go into.

A small wood plant with 2 empty holes and a wooden dowel sticking out of a third hole. — I wasn't sure which drill bit size to use for my wood plug, so I tested different sizes on a scrap piece of wood until the dowel I had fit snuggly.

A cube-like piece of wood being cut on the band saw. Another adjacent piece of wood holds the piece being cut steady. — After making the larger hole for the wood plug on my box, I cut the lid apart from the body. This operation was at first difficult, I felt I had to do too much force for it to cut. Ian instructed me to use another piece of wood to help the box keep steady as I cut, making sure no perpendicular force was being exerted on the blade.

Afterwards I continued with making the cavity for my box.

Wooden cube with an inset square-shaped pencil marking. — I measured and marked the size of the cavity to be removed from the box.

Top view of a wooden cube with a large rough cavity made of adjacent cilindrical holes. — Approximated the marked cavity with a forstner bit, using the bench press carefully to keep a consistent depth.

Wooden cube with a rough cavity being chiselled with a wood chisel and a rubber mallet. — As I was trying to even out the cavity with a chisel, my friend Niko (who has ample experience building wooden sail boats) gave me a thorough explanation of how to use the chisel.

Wooden cube with a squared out cavity inside it. Top view. — With his tips, I managed to even out the shape of the cavity to my liking.

I then added the screw to give the box its intended functionality.

A wooden cube with a square cavity and a wooden lid screwed onto it on the top-right edge of cavity. — I chose a countersunk screw so it would sit as flush as possible with the bottom of the wood-plug hole.

Wooden dowel being cut on the band saw. — I cut the wooden dowel down to a more manageable size.

Wooden cube with a dowel sticking out of its top-right corner. — After adding some wood glue, I stuck the dowel into the screw hole and let it dry overnight.

Wooden dowel insed a wood plank, cut flush with the plank. — Once it was dry, I used a hand saw to cut it flush with the surface.

At this moment, I was a little bit bothered by the roughness of box's bottom surface, inside the cavity.

Small wooden planks and a box cutter on top of a table. — I cut some small wooden planks off some scrap wood using the band saw to test out the idea of covering the bottom of the box up. I then tried to make the same cuts with the wood I made the box out of. However, I once again was having to exert too much force in the band saw. Since Ian had already left, I decided to err on the side of caution and use the planks I had already made.

Small wooden box with two small darker-colored planks on the bottom of its cavity and a small piece of acrylic on top of them. — I added wood glue and pasted the two planks on top of the rough bottom surface. I also placed a piece of acrylic before clamping, since I was afraid that the overflowing glue would stick to any piece of wood I added as an aid when clamping.

Small wooden box with a clamp holding a piece of wood inside it. — With the help of a bigger piece of wood on top of the acrylic plank, I clamped it down and let it dry overnight.

Finally, I finished my box by sanding.

Smooth wooden cube. — The box after sanding up to 400 grit.