January 29, 2012
Alphabet soup - Some copy CNC cut in urethane tooling board, like Renshape or Butter Board. The nice thing about this tooling board is that it holds a really good edge, and you can machine out parts with very thin walls and delicate features. It’s also ungodly expensive, so you get what you pay for. These will be assembled on to a board and dipped in “chocolate” - I’ve seen the final coated samples and they are very sexy indeed. Not sure if this is for print or TV commercial. Either way it’s an enormous international brand and I’m sure everybody will see this when it goes live.  

Alphabet soup - Some copy CNC cut in urethane tooling board, like Renshape or Butter Board. The nice thing about this tooling board is that it holds a really good edge, and you can machine out parts with very thin walls and delicate features. It’s also ungodly expensive, so you get what you pay for. These will be assembled on to a board and dipped in “chocolate” - I’ve seen the final coated samples and they are very sexy indeed. Not sure if this is for print or TV commercial. Either way it’s an enormous international brand and I’m sure everybody will see this when it goes live.  

OFFENSIVE + DELIGHTFUL! Let me tell you kiddies, this is by far one of the best greeting card lines ever conceived. I had the pleasure of randomly sitting at a neighborhood cafe with it’s creator Olga and BS-ing about this and that and going through their collection. Lemme tell ‘ya. Offensive, and brilliant. F-ing brilliant, and it just so turns out that she needed a sign for the gift show going on now at the Javits Center. So how could I refuse? CNC routed out of Sintra in a few minutes from an Illustrator file.  Good stuff. 

OFFENSIVE + DELIGHTFUL! Let me tell you kiddies, this is by far one of the best greeting card lines ever conceived. I had the pleasure of randomly sitting at a neighborhood cafe with it’s creator Olga and BS-ing about this and that and going through their collection. Lemme tell ‘ya. Offensive, and brilliant. F-ing brilliant, and it just so turns out that she needed a sign for the gift show going on now at the Javits Center. So how could I refuse? CNC routed out of Sintra in a few minutes from an Illustrator file.  Good stuff. 

January 25, 2012
Studying the feasibility of setting up an automatic vacuum system for the router that will automatically change the pump speed based on the pressure in the vacuum table, and in this case I mean a negative pressure, at least as compared to the standard atmospheric pressure. In my current pumping system, the pressure is going down to about 85,000 pascals (100,000 pascals is about the atmospheric pressure at sea level) and 85kPa seems to be pretty adequate for most cutting. The whole reason for this is because the new pump is VERY overpowered for this purpose, so it makes sense to throttle it down to the appropriate power level. The best part though, will be that as the sheet gets cut up and starts to leak, the pump will be able to automatically increase speed to make up for the loss, and at some point, it will be possible to trigger an alarm if the pump doesn’t seem to be keeping up, so we’ll know to use mechanical hold-downs BEFORE the sheet gets torn off the machine. 

Studying the feasibility of setting up an automatic vacuum system for the router that will automatically change the pump speed based on the pressure in the vacuum table, and in this case I mean a negative pressure, at least as compared to the standard atmospheric pressure. In my current pumping system, the pressure is going down to about 85,000 pascals (100,000 pascals is about the atmospheric pressure at sea level) and 85kPa seems to be pretty adequate for most cutting. The whole reason for this is because the new pump is VERY overpowered for this purpose, so it makes sense to throttle it down to the appropriate power level. The best part though, will be that as the sheet gets cut up and starts to leak, the pump will be able to automatically increase speed to make up for the loss, and at some point, it will be possible to trigger an alarm if the pump doesn’t seem to be keeping up, so we’ll know to use mechanical hold-downs BEFORE the sheet gets torn off the machine. 

rushdesign: Here’s the whole soldering jig for the big Studio1Thousand project, finally! Sometimes it seems easier to just cobble things together, or do things the shady way. When it gets to the point where you have to do something over and over, thousands of times, you have to make fixtures or jigs to help you get it done. It’s not only important to help you do the work more quickly, but also to help ensure that errors are reduced to an acceptable level. You really don’t want to get 1,000 pieces into a manufacturing run, only to find out that one person has been doing their work in a slightly different way than everyone else… Again, can’t exactly tell you what these are for yet, but we will definitely post up some photos when the project is public!

rushdesign:

Here’s the whole soldering jig for the big Studio1Thousand project, finally!

Sometimes it seems easier to just cobble things together, or do things the shady way. When it gets to the point where you have to do something over and over, thousands of times, you have to make fixtures or jigs to help you get it done. It’s not only important to help you do the work more quickly, but also to help ensure that errors are reduced to an acceptable level. You really don’t want to get 1,000 pieces into a manufacturing run, only to find out that one person has been doing their work in a slightly different way than everyone else…

Again, can’t exactly tell you what these are for yet, but we will definitely post up some photos when the project is public!

Jon, Matt and Tom have been busting their butts on this project for a long time now. And yes, that box in the background is FULL of LEDs, purchased 10,000 at a time.  rushdesign: LED’s everywhere! Lots of tiny clusters to be built. Behind the soldering iron is pile of a few THOUSAND LED’s to be assembled into a mysterious, functional project for one of our great clients. We can’t wait ‘till it’s all done and we can share the full scope of this one!

Jon, Matt and Tom have been busting their butts on this project for a long time now. And yes, that box in the background is FULL of LEDs, purchased 10,000 at a time. 

rushdesign:

LED’s everywhere!

Lots of tiny clusters to be built. Behind the soldering iron is pile of a few THOUSAND LED’s to be assembled into a mysterious, functional project for one of our great clients. We can’t wait ‘till it’s all done and we can share the full scope of this one!

January 24, 2012
A double dose of darkness…  Letters CNC cut from a urethane tooling board, such as Renshape or butter board.  This is a tester for a prop for a shoot for a big chocolate company.

A double dose of darkness…  Letters CNC cut from a urethane tooling board, such as Renshape or butter board.  This is a tester for a prop for a shoot for a big chocolate company.

January 19, 2012

Aw come on Jon, don’t you mean Kontraption?

Har har, Yes, we have all the fun here at the shop.  

rushdesign:

Behold! Yet another strange contraption!

This is a modified arbor press, which we are going to use to crimp electrical connectors onto brass tubes (yes, the same brass tubes that we previously powder coated).

These arbor presses are great. ENCO sells them for $25.95!! Seriously! Being so cheap, they make a great starting point for any number of different types of assembly tools, as long as they require a pressing motion. Also, they are made of really cheap Chinese cast iron, so they are really easy to mill and drill into!

The red-handled gizmo is a toggle clamp. Toggle clamps are really neat. That little clamp will exert 100 lbs. of clamping force, yet only takes a couple of pounds of force to lock into place. The other great thing about these clamps is that when you open them up they swing completely out of the way, making it very easy to load and unload parts.

And once again, I still cannot yet tell you what this is for. I’m sorry. It won’t be too much longer now.

January 18, 2012
Magnet carriers for custom Magna-Doodle / Doodle-Pro stamps for the Boston Children’s Museum. Made from Corian, these will be inlaid with neodymium magnet strips and then secured to a wooden handle for an exhibit opening next weekend.

Magnet carriers for custom Magna-Doodle / Doodle-Pro stamps for the Boston Children’s Museum. Made from Corian, these will be inlaid with neodymium magnet strips and then secured to a wooden handle for an exhibit opening next weekend.

CNC cutting in black latex rubber for artist Birgit Rathsmann. Rubber is NOT fun stuff to machine - In fact, most of the time, rubber is machined abrasively - But we found a tool that works on the CNC router and got surprisingly good results, especially considering the material. As for the graphics - It’s part of the equation used to describe the dual nature of light as a particle and wave. Yep - Us nerds always manage to find each other somehow.

CNC cutting in black latex rubber for artist Birgit Rathsmann. Rubber is NOT fun stuff to machine - In fact, most of the time, rubber is machined abrasively - But we found a tool that works on the CNC router and got surprisingly good results, especially considering the material. As for the graphics - It’s part of the equation used to describe the dual nature of light as a particle and wave. Yep - Us nerds always manage to find each other somehow.

January 17, 2012
Lightning bolts carved in to an 4” x 5” aluminum plate for artist Lisa Oppenheim. Lisa is going to make some neat Kirlian photography pieces from actual photos by converting them in to physical objects on the CNC. Very cool stuff, and I’m not saying this just because it involves high voltage.

Lightning bolts carved in to an 4” x 5” aluminum plate for artist Lisa Oppenheim. Lisa is going to make some neat Kirlian photography pieces from actual photos by converting them in to physical objects on the CNC. Very cool stuff, and I’m not saying this just because it involves high voltage.

January 16, 2012

In honor of my 10,000th follower, I present to you the amazing anti-gravity dog chewed volleyball. Oddly enough, the dog really isn’t too concerned or confused by the strange hovering orb.

Actually, this is weekend fun - firing up the new giant vacuum pump for the router hold down table and using it for nothing more than our (and the dog’s) amusement….making disgusting, badly chewed and slobber covered volleyballs float above the outlet nozzle. Good times. 

January 13, 2012

So this is an exciting thing that happened just outside the shop - Just so you know, it’s windy as all hell today here in the five boroughs, so windy in fact that this billboard right down the street caught the breeze and blew over ON to the BQE and then on to Meeker Ave. Kinda caused a hell of a mess - Apparently, nobody was hurt. 

January 9, 2012

So here’s the cobra, fresh of the CNC router for Scott Campbell. Scott and his crew will pack it with flammable stuff and set it off in a controlled environment to produce some pretty cool and unique art. What’s your power animal?  (files from Adobe Illustrator)

Getting back to it, cutting more weather vanes from plywood on the CNC router. Files were from simple black and white ink drawings on honest-to-god real paper by the Tasmanian tiger himself, artist Garry Nichols. 

Getting back to it, cutting more weather vanes from plywood on the CNC router. Files were from simple black and white ink drawings on honest-to-god real paper by the Tasmanian tiger himself, artist Garry Nichols. 

January 8, 2012
Steady as she goes! This roller is part of a giant sanding machine, and is probably about the largest part we’ve ever had on the lathe… The tail stock was hanging out over the end of the machine practically. For the non-machinist types, that means that it was sort of like having to ride in the car with the fishing rods sticking out the window. Anyway, what we were doing here was cleaning up and drilling and reaming the end of this roller to accept a dowel pin, which would then mate up to the broken off end of the drive shaft, and then the they were going to take it back to their shop and braze (hopefully) or weld it back together. You might notice another accessory on the lathe in this picture. Its the big ring thing with the screws in it that goes around the end of the roller. It’s called a Steady Rest and it’s adjustable and acts as a bearing surface at the end of a long piece to keep it…steady. You don’t run them terribly fast, and you definitely grease the surface of the part and keep it cool. We got it all fitted together here at the shop - Hopefully the brazing or welding went well too.

Steady as she goes! This roller is part of a giant sanding machine, and is probably about the largest part we’ve ever had on the lathe… The tail stock was hanging out over the end of the machine practically. For the non-machinist types, that means that it was sort of like having to ride in the car with the fishing rods sticking out the window. Anyway, what we were doing here was cleaning up and drilling and reaming the end of this roller to accept a dowel pin, which would then mate up to the broken off end of the drive shaft, and then the they were going to take it back to their shop and braze (hopefully) or weld it back together. You might notice another accessory on the lathe in this picture. Its the big ring thing with the screws in it that goes around the end of the roller. It’s called a Steady Rest and it’s adjustable and acts as a bearing surface at the end of a long piece to keep it…steady. You don’t run them terribly fast, and you definitely grease the surface of the part and keep it cool. We got it all fitted together here at the shop - Hopefully the brazing or welding went well too.