MSRaynsford

Another experiment in icosahedron, this pattern is far more appealing I may well try this again with real woods.

I decided to expand upon the polyhedra I previously drew. Using the mitred joint technique I created some more icosahedron using more interesting side shapes than previously. This celtic knot pattern was arranged so that it loops round the shape, I ended up colouring in various strands of the shape to make them stand out more clearly.

I tried to make make some cube shaped pumpkins last year but I built the box too large and it never really worked out . I've recut the box again this year using last years box and I got to my pumpkin a lot sooner. It's already developed flat spots on all 6 sides and I'm hoping it will grow out into the corners of the box soon too. It'll add to our now 'freakish' collection of garden plants such as our 9ft tall sunflower and it's (now) 14 headed, 8ft tall neighbour, and our marrow sized courgettes.

I have a new and awesome supplier of poplar plywood. I'm so pleased with the quality and standard that I actually feel guilty that I didn't write the post 2 weeks ago when I first got the goods. My new preferred supplier for poplar plywood, mdf and birch plywood is Kitronik . For the longest time now I've been looking for a supplier who actually acknowledges that laser plywood comes in types and that the standard of the wood actually matters and Kitronik were actually listening. As soon as I received my order I was pleasantly surprised. The wood came in a sturdy cardboard box sealed and taped neatly rather than the usual ensemble of salvaged cardboard wrapped loosely around sheets of wood. The sheets didn't quite fill the box so air bags were used to fill the voids and ensure no damage would occur during transit. Each sheet is clearly marked with a sticker to say exactly what material it is and what thickness. This is such a simple idea, I have a whole rack of ...

A leather working friend asked me if I would engrave some items for him. I merely added the lettering to these wonderful things the rest of the patterns were all added manually after they left me. I have some very talented friends and I'm pleased to help them where I can even if it means cutting stinky leather for them.  

Word of mouth filtered back some pretty exciting news for me this evening, my marble machine that was picked up by Solarbotics  two months ago has now found it's way over to the Maker shed and I received a very complimentary write up in the weekly newsletter . It's a pretty big goal for me and I'm stoked, means the whole journey has been pretty worthwhile. Makes me want to push on with my other projects now, these little victories are very encouraging. Hopefully see some of you at Manchester Maker Faire this weekend. I'll try to remember to bring my copy of this kit with solar engine.

Vale LRP has rather nice phys reps for their resources. I got fed up of throwing these test tubes full of powder into my storage box, knocking the corks out and being left with piles of funny coloured sand staining everything else in the box so I made these racks to hold the tubes securely and vertically. While I was doing one for powders I also did one for the resins too. I quickly discovered that I end up with a lot more than 25 of each resources over the course of an event so I'll be remaking them larger soon.