York Hackspace

I wanted a cover for my kindle and had been pondering it for a while drawing up some ideas of more and more elaborate cases with various pockets. Then I decided to try and focus a bit and reduce the case to the bare basics. I like to have a notepad with me when I read as I tend to get in a thinking mood quite often when I have been reading so it’s nice to have somewhere to get those thoughts out of my head. I had a few of these little notebooks that seemed to be just a little bit bigger than the kindle and so I thought they could be used to protect the screen of the kindle as well.

So I had a basic layout idea now it was to the scraps bin to find something to make it out of. I brought a load of leather offcuts for another project and had a load left. You can buy them by the Kg on ebay and get a random selection of small bits which are all quite useful. I found one that was almost big enough and folded it into a rough shape. I say almost big enough as it did not quite fit but looked like I could botch it a little so ploughed on.  I got a rough idea of the layout then used a rotary cutter to trim off some the excess till I had a rough shape.

Next up was working out how to hold it in pace ready for stitching. CA or superglue was the chosen solution it had two key properties, it sticks leather quickly and I have some to hand. So I ran a few beads of glue on the leather around the kindle and folded over one side. Held it down for a few seconds then breathed a sigh of relief as I manged to pull out the kindle and thus proving I had not glued it in place.

Repeating this for the note and pen and then adding a couple of extra tabs at the bottom of the notebook where the scrap did not quite fit it was starting to come together nicely. I grabbed one of the cut offs from earlier and made a little strap, again gluing it in place. Then left it to set for a while and when I came back was pretty pleased and impressed by the strength of the bond. I left if like that for a few weeks and it seemed to be holding up fine. In the end I decided to run a row of stitching along some of the glue joints just to be sure; using the Hackspace’s trusty Singer 413. The strap on the front is still just glued on and seems to be holding up fine though.

When I started to build this I just wanted to get started so this quick build method of superglue and rotary cutter seems like a really easy way to get a prototype made but in fact it looks like I’m sticking with this one for a while longer. There is something to be said for just getting started with what you have at hand rather than thinking things through and not making something. I would probably change some things if I make another one but I only know that now because I have been using this one for a while. Get out there and make something today!

For some time now I have wanted to make a roller top desk. These are normally made by cutting a plank of wood intro strips and sticking them to a piece of cloth backing to allow it to flex. This wobbly sheet is then held in a captive groove at either side allowing it to roll when pushed from one side. This creates a curved cover that rolls away in a satisfying manner. My first thought was to cut a single sheet of A4 ply into strips using the laser cutter and then follow the classic design but then I was shown a curved laser cut panel where somebody had just cut slots in a board and weakened it enough to bend it round a curve.

My first attempt did not go well, the lines where just too close together and I ended up with a smoldering square of charcoal. But it’s quite a quick feedback loop with the laser so a quick trip back to Inkscape, which was the tool I was using to do the drawing. With the line spacing just a little further apart it suddenly worked and I had something that looked like it might get me there. It took me a little while to get to grips with Inkscape but there are some good tutorials online for most things you want to do.

Next up was to build the box. I decided to go for a pretty simple design with top and bottom being the same. Laying out the overall bottom shape, then a second panel that was the same outside dimensions but had cutouts for the doors to run in. There where also some cut outs for the sides and back to fit. Then gluing these two panels together gave me a top and bottom. Then adding in some sides and back and squeezing it all into a single sheet of A4.

You can see in the photo that my door lines overran the doors. These looked okay in Inksape but something in the way K40 Whisperer laser cutter driver renders the SVG that does not quite seem to work.

After sticking it together with some superglue and a little light sanding of the tracks and the bottoms of the doors I put some candle wax on the edges of the doors and it pushed it all together. Getting the doors in place is tricky but not impossible and I found the best way was to have them about half open and fettle them into place with a thin screwdriver and a bit of wiggling.

If you want to make one for yourself then they are up on my gitlab page: Laser cutter source files.

I’m pretty happy with the overall design and have refined the first version to round some of the corners and generally fit together better. It’s great to be able to go from an idea to a working device.