Well, props to the mom’s of 1,000,000+ designers and engineers who, for reasons unbeknownst to them, gave a collective high-five from the sheer excitement of their sons and daughters learning SOLIDWORKS 2018 was indeed released and now available. SOLIDWORKS 2018 If you had to sum up SOLIDWORKS 2018 in one sentence, you would say, ‘SOLIDWORKS 2018 is a robo-ninja CAD-artillery mech with auto-deploy model-to-manufacturing melee battle action and the flexibility of jointless machine tool operator.” If that didn’t explain things sufficiently, you can say, “Look, SOLIDWORKS captures the whole scope from prototype to manufacturing with new mesh data manipulation, sheet metal features, generative design and topology studies, model-based definition and…

Yeah, they did it. Lenovo has announced two new upgrades to its line of ThinkStation ‘pewters bound to make your eye muscles tighten and twitch. The ThinkStation P720 and the P920 are two new dual processor systems designed for more taxing operations than opening 50 tabs of Martha Stewart recipes in Google Chrome. (All images save the one below showcase the P920 though, as you can see, the P720 looks like its smaller, slightly more rebellious twin sister). Lenovo ThinkStation P920 & P720 Both workstations run Intel’s newest Xeon Bronze, Gold, Silver and Platinum processors, which offer speeds of up to 3.6 GHz and support for up to 28 cores.…

From quick repairs to form exploration studies, few materials are as useful around the design engineer’s workshop as good old Bondo. Featuring a resin-based filler and a hardening solution, the hardener is blended together with the filler to create a chemical reaction which cures the creamy and spreadable product into a solid body. Originally created as a quick-fix putty for auto body repairs, the fast-curing, and easy-to-sand formula carries a tremendous range of semi-permanent applications. No wonder, then, that the two-part putty is used extensively by industrial designers and engineers to easily prototype concepts. Needless to say, a can of Bondo belongs in every workshop. https://youtu.be/DXv1EX3YQcg Bondo 261 Lightweight Filler…

We shouldn’t need to tell you the reasons to not stare directly at a Solar Eclipse. If you did, you likely wouldn’t be reading this right now. As you might expect, camera sensors and delicate lenses aren’t safe, either. In a series of gorgeous—yet slightly sad—shots, Tennessee-based camera lens rental shop LensRentals shares a number of damaged loaner lenses returned after the most recent Solar Eclipse: “The most common problem we’ve encountered with damage done by the eclipse was sensors being destroyed by the heat,” writes Zach Sutton on the LensRentals blog. “But not everyone follows the rules, and as a result, we have quite a few destroyed sensors. To…

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 we’ll get the groove going with “Slowly Disappear” from Hush Moss before diving into sweet melodies from Shoos Off, Evan P Donohue, Diane Coffee, Lina Tullgren, Dent May, and others before wrapping up with “Where’d All the Time Go?”…

If you’re tired of conventional magnets doing little more than sticking like parasites to your refrigerator, you might want to consider making your own. That’s what YouTube creator BrainfooTV did. After years of decorating his refrigerator with half-broken alphabet letters, he decided to create something a bit more practical for the kitchen. This mini meat cleaver may be the size of a thumb, but it is every bit as functional as its culinary big brother. The process in making one is exactly the same as a normal sized cleaver; albeit scaled down to tinier proportions. Using a small printout of a cleaver as the basis for the build, Brainfoo cuts…