My Projects

Baseball Bats

To make these, I placed a piece of 2 by 2 poplar on a wood lathe and used chisels to work the wood down to the desired shape. Once that was done, I sanded the bat and used a wood-burning tool to write the message. Once that was complete, I put several coats of polyurethane on the entire bat. The overall length of each bat is about 16 inches. For some reason, I only have photos of the bat I made for my brother; I made my dad one that I gave him for Fathers' Day.

Bracelets

These are samples of the bracelets that I have made. My favorite style chain maille weave is called European 4-in-1 (aka: E4-1). I also like "Box Chain", "Dragon's Scale", and a design that I came up with on my own - which I named "Bullseye".

Bullwhips

These bullwhips are made from parachute cord (paracord), nylon string, dowels, and pull chains (like for ceiling fans). They each took about 20 hours of work. I got the directions from Instructables. It takes some time and practice, but they both work pretty well. I can't really do any tricks, but I can make them crack. That's a lot of fun!

Chess Set

These are some images of the Chess set I made. Sorry that the pieces are dusty - at some point I may re-take these photos and post them again... Because I could only work on this part time, it took over a year to complete. I turned each man on a lathe and cut out each square for the board. Each of the knights is half turned and half hand-carved. I used 5 coats of polyurethane in order to get the glossy surfaces. The board consists of 64 squares that are each 2 inches by 2 inches. The entire board is 18 inches by 18 inches by 1.5 inches.

Display Case

Jewelry Box

This is the Jewelry Box that I made for my wife before we were married. The script was engraved using a Dremel tool and the entire thing was coated with polyurethane from an aerosol can... The wood is Pine - that is why some areas are darker than others; the softer parts of the wood absorbed the stain faster than the harder parts. The inside of the box appears to have a triangle-shaped light spot, but that is just due to the flash being reflected onto the back of the box. You can probably tell that some areas are more glossy than others... Oops.

Knives

I've made several more knives since the three you see below. As you can see, I've improved my methods and techniques as I learned what worked and what didn't. The resulting quality has risen and I've learned quite a lot about metals and their workability and hardenability.

Metal Models

This is one of those sheet metal models that you see at bookstores and craft stores. It had two sheets of perforated pieces that I assembled in an evening.

Necklaces

These are a few of the necklaces I have made. They were fun to make, and provided a unique challenge for my beginning chain mail skills.

I particularly liked the pendant that I gave to our wedding photographer. It is called "Captive Inverted Round". I had to modify it to work as a pendant, but I like how it turned out.

I'm not as much of a fan of beaded necklaces, but I liked the color scheme that I was able to achieve with the Turtle.

Quadrotor

I built this Quadrotor using parts I purchased from FliteTest and several other vendors. It's pretty stable and each arm is made from 0.5 x 0.5 x 10 inch oak. I'm using 9x4.5 propellers.

Remote Control Planes

I built this remote control plane from plans I found on the FliteTest website. They call it the "FT 3D" because it was meant as a 3D plane (aka: a "trick plane"). The plans were free and all I had to buy was the foam board and the electronics. If not for my piloting skills (or lack thereof) it would be a nice trick plane. I crashed it immediately after taking these photos, but I've since repaired it. It has a few minor cosmetic blemishes, but once I learn to fly properly, I'll give it another go!

After I crashed the FT 3D, I decided to build another plane... One that would (hopefully) be simpler to fly. Enter the "FT Flyer" - also designed by the folks over at FliteTest. The Flyer doesn't have Ailerons, so it (theoretically) requires less coordination to fly. I'm still not sure about my piloting skills, but once the weather clears up, we'll see if I can handle this plane any better. I've used a few flight simulators since my first attempt to fly and I think I might be able to handle this one a bit better.

...Well, as it turns out, I was using foam board that is too heavy... Because of this, my planes require about twice the lift that they should. This makes flying them practically impossible... Oops.

Rep Rap 3D Printer

I sourced most of the parts for this 3D printer over the course of a year or so. The threaded rods were from an online metal company, the smooth rods were from Amazon, and most of the electronics were from Adafruit or Makergeeks. I used the designs for the Rep Rap Mendel Prusa Iteration 2 that can be found on the reprap.org wiki. So far it has printed quite well at 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 millimeter layer heights. The extrusion rate is pretty well calibrated at 760 steps per mm of filament. I can get very good results with 50 millimeters per second print speed and 100 millimeters per second movement on the X and Y axes. I run the Z axis at only 1 millimeter per second because it doesn't need to move rapidly. Also, due to the weight of the X-carriage, the Z axis can bind up if I run it much faster. Better safe than sorry!

Storage Chest

They're not great photos, but they show the integral lock, the hinges, the feet, and the lid. My favorite part is the lid. I wanted to give my wife something personal that would make her think of me. I figured we could use a trunk and she likes handmade things, so this was perfect. It took a good while for me to finish, but the result was worth the wait.