Money Shooting Tool.

Posted on January 4, 2022 by Carl Stevens

Are you a boat or home owner? Do you wish paying your bills was more fun? Do you have stacks of cash sitting around just taking up space? Well this is the project for you! Over the next month we will be designing version 2 of the Rain Maker. It’s a tool that you load with cash and then launch at about the speed most of my project eat cash lately. Version 2 you ask? That’s right most of the longer projects we model in class take me several attempts to get right. Here is a link so you can see it in action.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CYP6pMlIizE/

The first draft lets me work out the ideas and see if I can get a working prototype. In this case I knew I wanted to try over molding like our favorite tool company here in Milwaukee and I was not sure if my cash accelerator device would work. About a hundred hours of printing later I can tell you it does and I learned a lot of do’s and don’t when over molding on 3d printed parts. I do really like the feel of the urathane rubber in my hand and it is so much fun to see money shooting our the front of the tool. This is going to be a fun one so join us Mondays @ 7pm or watch the series on YouTube.

3 Scoops of Signage

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Minga, Brandon

Julie and Carl of Scoops Ice Cream & Candies of Kenosha, approached new Makerspace member, Brandon Minga, with their project. They were given recommendations from other projects he’s done in the are including Mike’s Chicken & Donuts and the Modern Apothecary. Scoops was looking to enhance and draw more attention to their new location with a large exterior sign. Going through the concept and design process Minga quickly decided that the sign design was also going to become their new logo. Once the final design was rendered he quickly learned how to CNC a template to hand plasma trace the design out of sheet metal. The middle of the sign was also hand cut, roll bent and broke to match the bubbly ice cream cone shape. With a little help from friends a the Makerspace, he ground down welds and drilled 44 holes for the light bulbs. After all the holes were drilled Minga fit the sign with sockets, wired up the sockets and tested the electrical. Working with Prodigy Sign in Kenosha he also coordinated the hanging of the sign.

Any project starts with a sketch.

Nothing wrong with learning a little g-code.

Continue reading →

Come Learn Something

Posted on December 5, 2015 by Carl Stevens

Tuesday meetings often turn into training night at the Makerspace. So many members come the the weekly meeting that it can be easy to find something new to learn. Last week was no exception when Pete gave an intro to screen printing.

It seemed like a straight forward process and I would encourage people who want to try making a t-shirt to email Pete to get checked out on the machine.

After walking the class through the basics of preparing the silk with the design. Pete set up an example print and let his small class of makers give it a try.

Our woodshop has a Router table!

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Pilon, Steve

The woodshop now has a Rockler router table! Thanks to Bill M for donating the table and James for adapting the plate to an existing Craftsman router we can now use this fantastic router table. The table has a convenient switch(visible in the picture with a large safety STOP button), an adjustable fence, anti-kickback finger, slots for jigs, and is conveniently placed on wheels so the whole unit can be wheeled to where ever it is needed. If your wondering “what the heck is a router table, or a router for that matter” then check out the links below to get started.

Some great information on using a router table from Rockler is available here:

Router Table Basics

A great video for absolute router beginners, Steve Ramsey also has a bunch of other great woodworking videos:

Router Basics router tables start at about 6:45

How to make a picture frame using a router table, another Steve Ramsey YouTube video:

How to make a simple picture frame using a woodworking router

An overall pic of the router table.

A tight picture of the top of the router table showing slots for clamping jigs, fence, and anti-kickback devices.

A close up shot of a craftsman router mounter under the router table.

Custom Snow Globe

Posted on December 25, 2012 by BenN

Well, I’ve been slaving away on creating a unique X-mas gift for my wife and two-year old daughter, and I think I got it right. They loved it!

I’m talking about a Custom Snow Globe!

A while back, I was working in the driveway on a styrofoam project. Of course, that white stryrofoam dust gets static-charged and STICKS TO EVERYTHING. I also found that the best tool for cutting it was my wife’s kitchen electric carving knife. When I headed inside to take a break and warm up, I was COVERED with styrofoam. My two-year-old girl looked up at me and squeeled “Daddy a Snowman!”.

Indeed I was. I imagined myself inside a snow-globe with styrofoam swirling around me like a snowstorm. But could I actually BUILD a snowglobe that would match my imagination?

I started looking at every snow globe I could find and set to work building one. I looked around and found a glass dome, used for light fixtures. I got two of them, and gave one to my brother-in-law, who is a clay artist, among other things, and commissioned him to make a caricature of me. Since he had one globe, and I had the other, he could make a figure that would fit inside the globe, and I could do the woodworking on the base, and insure that the globe fit that.

I headed to the local cabinet shop and talked to old high-school class-mate Steve about what wood to use for a base. He gave me a maple block, and I grabbed some scrap maple from the bin to practice cuts and routering on. At my Dad’s back-of-the-garage shop, I experimented with routing, until I could get it right, and routed a circle for the base of the glass globe, cut the wood base to length and cut a 45-degree bevel on the top edge, and routed a pocket in the bottom for the electronics.

I wanted to make a “singing” snow-globe, so I bought a singing greeting card at the Hallmark store, and then dissected it for parts. The electronics were then mounted on the bottom of the wood base, along with a custom switch.

I headed to the Milwaukee Makerspace to use the laser-cutter.

Using the vector graphics program on the laser’s computer, I laid out an inscription for both the top and bottom of the snow globe base. I practiced on a piece of paper, and then when I actually focused the laser properly and had everything else figured out, I wood-burned the maple block, front and back.

I also used a solder station to add the momentary on switch to the greeting card electronics, so that the song would play whenever the globe was picked up to shake up the snow.

Next, was clear-coating the figure and the wood base. I used “Parks Super-Glaze”, a two-part epoxy clear coat used for bars, to completely seal and waterproof both the figure and the base, as well as to permanently attach the figure to the base.

Then, it was a matter to holding the globe upside down, filling it with water, filling the routed circular grove of the base with silicon glue, and flipping the figure and base, upside-down, into the dome of water. Once it was cured, the snow-globe can be flipped right-side-up, gift-wrapped, and put under the tree!

I’m glad to say that the project turned out just great! It was a bit of a stretch to my skill-set, so THANK YOU to the people who gave me a hand with it. Nothing quite like a project that runs the gamut from sculpture to wood-working, electronics, glass, water, laser-engraving, and more! But that’s how we grow… by stretching a little bit more every time!

Merry X-mas

From Ben the Snowman.