Using a series of post-processing techniques like sanding, painting, gluing, and mold-forming, you can easily make your 3D printed projects look just like their store-bought counterparts — ideal for when presenting realistic “looks like” prototypes to clients or coworkers. From sanding and gluing all the way to crafting different molds and finally painting the objects, MakerBot’s Definitive Guide to 3D Printing Post-Processing is a valuable resource containing seven different post-processing techniques for design students and professionals to “take their ideas beyond the build plate”. Each guided technique features a video detailing the different steps you have to take before and after the printing process. To ensure that you aren’t scrambling for…

Those wood or 3D printed parts won’t smooth themselves! But how often do you spend wrestling a piece of sandpaper around weird edges—only to be left with a half-crooked and totally botched result? There’s a remedy for that — and we can’t recommend it enough. The Preppin’ Weapon sanding block is a workshop necessity that lets users load sandpaper and adjust tension quickly and easily. And while just one Preppin’ Weapon sanding block will go a long way in your process, arming yourself with a four-pack for four different levels of grit will take it to another level—no need to stop and reload! For power users, the Preppin’ Weapon also…

Get that stretch out of your system with this week’s Spotify-powered SolidSmack Radio Playlist. It’s fashioned up, ready to make you pull your shoulder blades back and knock out another week of meaningful work while you bob your head to the beat. Whether you’re in the shop milling aluminum, sketching the latest product prototypes or modeling up a 3D storm, consider these tracks as a tool for your process. This week on SolidSmack Radio we’ll get the groove going with “get innocuous” from LCD Soundsystem before diving into tracks from DARKSIDE, Beck, Vampire Weekend, The Dandy Warhols, and others before wrapping up with “Wire – Leaping Dub” from the always…

On January 30th, 2019, an impressive concentration of hardware pros could be found at Synapse Product Development’s downtown Seattle office. Usually, HW people are in the minority at tech events, but not this time. What was the buzz about? Dragon Innovation was there to sponsor a HW startup panel which also included representation from Hackster, Glowforge, and Root Ventures. Also, there was beer on tap. So, that’s something to be buzzed about. Here’s photographic proof of how excited everyone was: Watch Video of the Talk There were lots of valuable tips and trends the panel pros shared during the discussion. You can watch the highlights in the video below: Who…

What in the world is a “Squircle” you might ask? Well, its a cross between a square and a circle. Designers the world over admire the squircle because it gives us a lot of form exploration range. If I want a product to be perceived as stately or strong I might adjust the squircle more toward the square end of the spectrum. But, if I’m going for playful and approachable, I’d likely opt toward the circle end of the spectrum. Now keep in mind there are other factors that go into the equation of how a product is perceived such as CMF. If you want to see squircle in action…

I was squirtin’ some tunes on a Zune last week, when all of sudden I got a notification about a blog post on Onshape: Lessons From 5 Epic Consumer Design Failures. In it, John McEleney, Co-founder of Onshape, breaks down some of, what many thought would be, the best products EVER. In one way or another, they FAILED, and we’re left with the tattered remnants of their memory and questions about how much to sell them for. I bet you can think of A LOT more product fails (leave them in the comments if so) but we’re going to tackle John’s list and make-believe that we solved their mass-consumer uptake…