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.

 

A post shared by Mingadigm (@brandonminga) on May 2, 2017 at 12:47pm PDT

Took that g-code and used the handmade CNC router to cut out a template (note to self, don’t use OSB for plasma templates).

Traced template with hand plasma cutter.

Hand cut, roll bent, metal break and tack welded the bottom shell.

Hand cut and used the break to bend my own c-channel for the stabilizing guts of the sign.

A little help from my friends!

 

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A little custom install and wiring….and we have lights!

Can’t forget the paint! Primed inside and out, the sign got coated with some retro color.

Installation day was very windy, they called two crews in to stabilize the sign as they anchored it to the building.

This is a Mingadigm.com by Brandon Minga

This project was done at the Milwaukee Makerspace,  thank you, gang!

When you buy a bolt, it doesn’t typically have a nice flat head on it. It’s got a bunch of markings, and usually some sort of part number, or something. Here’s a bolt I found on eBay. Look at all those numbers and letters!

Here’s a close-up I shot of a bolt head. What does it all mean? Well, Brant told me that the manufacturers add these markings to help prevent counterfeit parts. He even mentioned that years ago a building was built with some knock-off fasteners and it collapsed causing terrible damage. Terrible!

Well, I brought a bolt to the makerspace because I wanted it to have a nice smooth and shiny top. Bill**2 was kind enough to show me the new metal buffing area, which has a nice belt sander (which we used to remove the lettering) and 6 (yes, six!) buffing wheels of various grit. I used all six to give my bolt a nice clean shine.

Here’s my bolt after removing the letters and buffing it up. I probably could have done a bit more, but this was still a hundred times better than before I started. And yes, it is hooked up to an AT42QT1010 Capacitive Touch Breakout Board and a Teensy.

We can do better! All it took was some scrap metal, an old light fixture, and scrounged hardware. Grinding, welding, drilling, done.

Ninety minutes later, I had chucked the vile plastic bucket in the dumpster and this hotness was bolted to the wall. One project done and a great way to start the Memorial Day weekend.

If you saw the post about our Aluminum Anodizing Workshop, you probably wondered what the Metal Shop looked like with 20 makers running around prepping pieces of aluminum. Well, here’s a short time lapse video to show you.

Note: See Frankie’s post for a ton more photos!

We fired up the casting furnace and melted some aluminum! If you missed it, don’t worry, we plan to do it again Thursday night, April 4th, 2013.

Here’s a quick highlight reel of the event… Enjoy!

One of our members, who I’ll refer to as a “Master of Metal” made this fully-functional sign for one of our doors. Never again will someone attempt to enter said door without knowing who (and what) lies on the other side.

And when I say this sign is “fully-functional” I mean it is fully-functional. Enough said.

It’s been just under a month since we announce Frank as our first Makership recipient, and he’s been busy!

I just wanted to share these two great images of his work, featuring a “wing nut” and some skull rings.

Pretty cool! Frank said he’s still getting the lay of the land at the Makerspace and figuring out who is who and what all the equipment does, but it’s good to see some progress being made.

And speaking of progress, if you want more updates, check out his blog, iFabr1kat3, where he’s documenting much of his work.