I sat down with Derek Roberts, the man behind the MillRight CNC company. Derek is an entrepreneur, tinkerer, designer, visionary and guy with a cool southern accent. He goes over everything, from how he got started, to MillRight’s first product, starting a business, running a business, manufacturing challenges and, oh yes, their new desktop CNC product,…

The pizza has been delivered, the ale is chilled, and you’re just about ready to get floored with this week’s SolidSmack Weekend Reader. The Weekend Reader is your In-shorts Reader and gives you a glimpse of the most interesting articles featured on the ‘Smack’. A recap of the week that was, and a glimpse of…

Xometry, an advanced manufacturing/prototyping software platform, has recently acquired $23 Million in investment capital from GE Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and others to help accelerate development of its advanced manufacturing platform. Put another way, the company gained a ton of funds to ramp up development of their online quoting systems and software integration to dominate…

While Frank Howarth of Frank Makes may be one of our favorite go-to YouTubers when it comes to woodworking, This Old Tony is close behind when it comes to machining and other forms of metalworking. While the scope of his videos vary from designing and making your own springs to machining tool holders for a…

It’s not very often when a new tool comes along that changes the way we think about making things, but when it does, it’s usually pretty epic. The Shaper Origin is one of those tools. Billed as the World’s First Handheld CNC, the Shaper Origin –– which, as you might expect, looks similar to a…

Completed in 1912, Portland’s Steel Bridge is the only double-deck bridge with independent lifts in the world and the second oldest vertical-lift bridge in North America – after the nearby Hawthorne Bridge just a stone’s throw down the Willamette River. For his 3rd-grade son’s recent school project, our woodworking YouTuber Frank Howarth of Frank Makes…

When it comes to superheroes, their weapons of choice are almost just as iconic as the heroes themselves. Superman has his superpowers, Batman has his Batarangs, Iron Man has his flying indestructible suit and Captain America has his iconic shield. It’s the latter that the talented CAD designers, swordsmiths, blacksmiths and fabricators at Baltimore Knife…

Holy mother of inventions! The Milling Machines designed by Arthur Sacek are so exciting they send tinngles through our nether regions. Too bad Arthur doesn’t particularly want to share how he exactly built his machines, but we do know that as a member of Brazil’s ZOOM Education for Life, Arthur is a genius.

Color us impressed. Reddit user ‘bcmanucd’ has just shared his process on the trending /r/DIY subreddit of creating a time trial bike for his wife using his university’s engineering shop. While it’s unclear what his design or engineering background is, one thing is for certain: the dude can build a pretty impressive bike! Here he…

Ahhh… the smell of freshly-cut urethane foam in the morning. The Nomad 883 delivers a 25 micrometer (.001″) repeatability on the X and Y (2.5um on the Z), a minuscule 18″ square footprint, and an impressive 8″x8″x3″ build volume… and we want it. We want it bad.

If someone were to tell you five years ago that you would be able to 3D print a garden in the next few years, your disbelief would probably grow faster than the grass hair on a Homer Simpson Chia Pet. However the momentum of mixing digital fabrication with non-traditional materials doesn’t seem to be slowing…

3D modelers of both the engineering and artistic flavors can probably agree that seeing the realization of their digital models is one of the most rewarding aspects of the job. Bringing digital dreams into the physical realm is what defines our current era, and it is the challenge of constructing unprecedented objects that pushes us…

For centuries the chair has been the quintessential design challenge for creative minds the world over. How can I possibly do something new with this old form?—is a question that many designers have asked themselves over the ages, while trying to infuse their sitting-devices with style that is markedly their own. Fortunately for twenty-first century…

In a machining era that is quickly becoming dominated by 3D printing technology, it is important to not overlook some of the advancements that are developing in the CNC world. After all, not everything can be build-to-spec from the ground-up, and for those projects which just ‘need some relief’, we turn to our mills—and what…

If you are thinking that it is about high-time to be bustin’ out the old pumpkin carving knife then think again! Egg-coloring season might still be seven months away, but Evil Mad Scientist’s “Original Egg-Bot” can lay graphics on a whole variety of spherical objects to keep you busy until spring. The manufacturer claims that…

It is no secret that high-fashion is like history; it is known to repeat itself. While the latest fads might not always be carbon-copies of their predecessors, the roots of modern style are often painfully obvious to those with an observant eye—and eyeglasses themselves might be the perfect example of this. With the recent rise…

The lonliness that consumes you when the CNC operators talk shop is all about to end. You may not know how to bolt a billet of aluminum into a chunk without removing half your arm skin, but you can download a program with less trauma and bring a CHUCKle to a machinists face. A fresh…

Metrix Create: Space – a collective of evil geniuses in Seattle Washington – recently posted their first results out of their current project, Big Robot. It’s an old CNC machine repurposed to carry a scaled up version of the plastic extruder from the RepRap open source 3D printer project. Aside from being built from mostly…

Yes. I did just tell you last week to go fund ShapeOko on Kickstarter. But some of you looked at it and thought that you needed an already proven design, and some input on new features. Man, you’re picky… but you’re also in luck! DIYLILCNC is just the machine for you and for 40 or…

Ever built a CNC machine? I have. You never, ever hit your budget. Usually it’s because you don’t count on shipping costs or having to deal with sourcing hardware/parts from many different distributors. If you’re trying to recreate a project from instructables, you obviously missed the part where the author failed to mention he spent years…

Ponoko, the New Zealand based purveyor of laser cutting services has been rolling out additional services this year under the name Personal Factory. In the past, they’ve added services such as 3D printing and have provided access to a huge catalog of electronics components. Now, they’re announced one more way to butcher that beautiful, flat-packed…

You’re gonna kick yourself after you see this and think about the grove of bamboo and blood-thirsty, wild panda you just cleared out of your backyard. You so could have fashioned it into an iPhone case. Not to worry, Ken Tomita and his wily gang of sustainable-minded makers have you covered. It’s Grove, an Oregon-based…

Put the crackers down. The shop is calling. Nope, not to tell you they have to remake everything, but to let you know the part-makin’ is going perfectly. Why? You knew what to look out for. On the screen it looks spectacular, right? but can it actually be made? For many designers and engineer’s designing…