CNC Machining the Magnet Stool

This morning I (and Marc, one of the Fab Lab guys) CNC machined out the parts for my magnet stool in the Digital Fabrication lab here at U of M. It was great, I love the large budget of a huge research university! Lots of cool tech, and lots of it in the Fab Lab!

Being my first time on the machines it took a little bit to set up my file (only 5 hours!) because I had not quite optimized my Rhino file to be machined with MasterCam (the cnc software). But hey, it worked and it's awesome! I'll be sanding and glueing up tomorrow.

Drilling out some magnet holes.

That's the incredibly helpful Marc. Marc is awesome.

The finished cuts are quite nice, I'll be sanding them with some ridiculously super fine grit sand paper and just regular yellow legal paper (a tip from a friend who worked for Steelcase) for a super smooth and finished edges.

Thanks for reading!

Magnetic Chair (in process)

My magnetic chair is coming along full swing. I've had some hiccups of course, like the bending plywood not bending nearly as tightly as I was lead to believe it would and instead snapping. But over all, I'm ok with the bending ply not working, it was really not a very nice material to look at when layered and the whole reason I wanted to use layered veneers was for the edge quality of layered veneers.

Instead I am CNC machining the legs (well, the entire chair) out of a nice plywood from Fingerlee Lumber here in Ann Arbor (a great local lumberyard, highly recommended). I've got time on the CNC machine tomorrow morning and I'm quite excited, it will be my first time on these machines. I'm so thankful that Michigan has the world class Taubman Architecture college in the same building at the Art & Design school. Because of their huge budget and big money donors (namely the schools name sake, Taubman), they have an impressive amount of tech that I'm able to get my hands on. I love it and kinda wish the Architecture school had a design program as well. Design in the hands of artists is withering out sadly.

The CNC routers. Photo from Julian Bleecker's Flickr.

The other snafu was the magnets I had ordered online turned out to be from a company in Hong Kong. In my haste to order them at the end of a class period, I neglected to check where they were shipping from. So for the chair that I wanted to keep the sourcing local, I end up buying product from Hong Kong. The stupid things aren't even here yet. I ended up buying some neodymium magnets from Stadium Hardware here in Ann Arbor, again highly recommended.

I've worked out where all the magnets lay and will be embedded and I am quite happy with how it should come all together. Below are some screen shots from Rhino of my model and cut files. (I decided not to take the time now and render them nicely, so screen shots it is for now!)

The cut file. I'm cutting 3/4" plywood and sandwiching the pieces to create the size needed. The circles are various drill holes for the friction and magnetic held wooden rods that will hold the chair together while in its 'up' position or the magnet holes for the carrying 'down' mode.

The chair up on the left and the collapsed carrying state on the right. The hole in the back of the seat acts as a handle for carrying the chair.

Another view.

I'll post some process pictures of the CNC and the resulting pieces tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Branded Puzzle. Finished?

The mock marketing poster for the Big Boy Brands Puzzle.

The Brand Puzzle for my CFC II final project was finished last week. I'm pretty happy with it. I'd like to redo it and use the CNC router instead of a hand held jig saw to make it, it would look more professional then. Also, paint the logos or at least cut the paper out better and cover them with a clear epoxy.

Either way, here it is. Artist statement first. You can see the mock marketing poster above.

My First Puzzle™

Big Boy Brands Edition

Baby puzzle created with the images of American business icons
to teach toddlers the correct brands early in life to
ensure social acceptance in adulthood.

The Big Boy Brands puzzle is a reaction to the American obsession with brands. We start kids young on brands as image and culture. Gerber, Toys R’ Us, Mattel, Fisher Price, Barbie, Lego.

As we get older, our obsession with brands only grows as we move to more grown up types of brands. Nike, Apple, Coca-Cola for example. The Big Boy Brands puzzle is a reaction to the move to grown up brands from the icons of our youth.

I designed the Big Boy Brands puzzle by My First Puzzle TM with the idea of the marketing campaign behind the piece appealing to overly concerned parents. The ad campaign poster reads “Parents! Help your toddler grow up right with the Big Boy Brands puzzle from My First PuzzleTM,” and “practically ensures social acceptance in your child’s future!” No parent would not want his or her child to fit in, and the Big Boy Brands puzzle imprints popular brands and images of the older demographic on child minds, only guaranteeing the child would dress and act similarly to the rest of the majority; fitting in as a shell only. Our obsession with brands and their images creates our popular culture and dictates its course. All the Big Boy Brands puzzle does is make sure your child grows up on the same course as countless other children.
-Pete Hall

Materials:
• Birch Plywood
• ½” Dowel Rod
• Print materials (paper, ink) for logos and advertising
• Puritan Pine Wood Stain
• Wood Glue
• Super 77 Glue

Resources:
• www.walmart.com/catalog
• brands.babycatalog.com
• news.cnet.com
• Shopping, A Century of Art and Consumer Culture. Ed. Gruenberg and Hollein. Hatje Cantz Publishers, London. 2002.
• U of M Wood Shop and Fabrication Studio Tools









Thanks for reading!