/308 - Morning Machining

After a lot of trial and error, I managed to finish the etch. The tiny endmills needed to get all the detail just didn’t hold up so I had to bump it up after I snapped a few. In the end I don’t think it hurt the design too much and am happy with it. After that it was paint and sanding — I use course sandpaper to give the aluminum a brushed finish that I think looks and feels great. Got everything boxed up except have an issue with the template for the input and output jacks being off (or maybe my enclosure was off) so the jacks don’t really fit. Still debating on whether or not to enlarge the hole or get different/smaller jacks to make it work. So close.

/202 - During, Pt 3

Felt inclined to try the enclosure art with paint pen as a test run before cutting into the aluminum. Not sure why since I’ve got the setup ready and have done it before. I guess because I wanted to see the design in print before committing. It’s fun to watch the machine work anyway, so no harm done except (at least, I’m slow) one more day before I can put it back together.

/192 - During, pt 2

Have been having a tough time coming up with graphics I like, but these are both pretty nice. Abstracting pictures into vectors is a lot of fun. Want to do something a little different (color) than I did on a few other enclosures, but not exactly sure how I can pull it off yet. Hrmmm.

/190 - During, pt 1

Turns out this is going to take more rework than I initially thought. I made myself a roadmap and then started taking things apart to test fit in the new enclosure. It will work! Just need to finish the graphics and etch, then I can put it all back together.

/188 - Before

Time for this old dual OD250 to get a new house…

/174 - Diagramming

Started thinking about this week’s Junto project tonight and was sketching out graphical ideas of what could constitute “special.” We do a lot of diagrams like this at work — it helps visualize possible design motifs that become a roadmap for the actual design.

Honestly, I spent too much taking drawing them in the computer. There’s a beauty to the quickness of a hand-sketch.

/166 - Birthday

Happiest birthday to my lovely wife Ashley! I used the cnc machine to draw her a card (covid quarantine improv style) and got up super early to make her a lemon loaf. I literally never bake and was very happy and surprised it turned out so well. Emi and I are really lucky to have such a wonderful person in our life. ♥

/109 - Magnafont, pt 2

Managed to work out the entire alphabet, except the S which looks the same as the 5. Several of them make sense in context, but wouldn’t read well by themselves. Still a fun exercise.

/105 - Magnafont

Emi and I were playing with her Magna-Tiles today making lots of towers and spaceships and pizzas when I started to notice these patterns. Only took a few minutes to work them all out, and then a few more to draw them up in inDesign (because I’m awful at Illustrator). I’m tempted to try all the letters too…

I figure there’s no way someone else hasn’t done a triangle font like this yet, but decided not to look and just go with it. Ignorance is creative bliss.