Category Archives: design hacks

Fashion Mannequin Is Fiberglass Reinforced Paper Craft

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[Leah and Ailee] run their own handmade clothing business and needed a mannequin to drape their creations onto for display and photography. Since ready-made busts are quite pricey and also didn’t really suit their style, [Leah] set out to make her own mannequins by cleverly combining paper craft techniques and fiberglass.

[Leah] started by looking for suitable 3D models as a base for her design. The right one was found on opengameart.com, loaded into Blender, and underwent a few serious modifications including heavy use of the decimate tool before it became a stylish low-poly bust.

The reduced number of triangles …read more

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Lifting The Secret Of The Wooden Rings

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Making beautiful things from epoxy and wood happens to be [Peter Brown’s] area of expertise. He was recently quested with reverse engineering the ring design of the Canadian manufacturer secret wood — a unique combination of splintered wood and epoxy — and achieved impressive results.

As it turns out, splintering wood on purpose and in just the right way is harder than not taping the kerf. [Peter] tried breaking wooden boards in half over his knee, in a vise, he kerfed the wood to make it crack more straight, he tried thin boards and thick boards. Eventually, he got the …read more

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Lifting The Secret Of The Wooden Rings

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Making beautiful things from epoxy and wood happens to be [Peter Brown’s] area of expertise. He was recently quested with reverse engineering the ring design of the Canadian manufacturer secret wood — a unique combination of splintered wood and epoxy — and achieved impressive results.

As it turns out, splintering wood on purpose and in just the right way is harder than not taping the kerf. [Peter] tried breaking wooden boards in half over his knee, in a vise, he kerfed the wood to make it crack more straight, he tried thin boards and thick boards. Eventually, he got the …read more

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Beer Gun Shoots Non-Lethal Doses Of Beverages

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[Michalis Mavros] likes building things from steel. Guns are from steel. He and his friends also like action movies and beer. To address everybody’s needs [MakeItExtreme] style, he built a gigantic beer gun. At the size and caliber of a small field artillery cannon, the spectacular piece of art dispenses chilled pop cans for unsuspecting movie night visitors.

Inside of the 100 x 70 x 25 cm (39 x 28 x 10 inch) assembly crafted from welded steel and wood, [Michaelis] installed a motor scavenged from an automatic window opener. The motor actuates a slider on a linear track above …read more

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