Friday, September 2, 2011

Welcome to The Tinker's Workshop

Hello Everyone,
  Welcome to my blog site.  I have been working on a lot of different projects over the past couple of years and I thought that it would be a good idea to get this out to the rest of the world.  As you've seen from the opening page I am a retired designer and am still designing, dreaming, and building all kinds of stuff for the fun of it.  I am a member of the Quad City Collaboration and Hackerspace or QC Co-Lab for short and have a lot of fun with the great people there.  We share ideas, projects, stories and each others company so it's always a good time.  In my blog you will find past projects that I have completed, am currently working on, and new ideas that will be future projects.  The CNC machine that you will find photos of under "Completed Projects" was constructed with a good deal of help from the guys at the QC Co-Lab.  They helped me get through all of the electronics work that needed to be done and I built the rest of the machine by hand in my tiny basement workshop.
  In the coming months I plan on building a duplicate of this machine for the QC Co-Lab so that everyone there can have access to such a wonderful tool.  I will document this build as I go along in my blog here so that everyone following my exploits will benefit by what I have already learned and maybe you will be inspired to build your own CNC machine for your workshop.
  Also on the blog are photos of my composite three section kayak that I can easily haul on my Mini Cooper, a cargo trailer for my motorcycle with custom coolers, and a composite recumbent bicycle.  The kayak was a great project and a lot of fun to use also.  I designed and built the kayak from scratch again in my little workshop and it was launched a year ago last July.  The recumbent bicycle also in the completed projects page is a composite fiberglass construction.  I'm still trying to find time to get the tweaking done on the bike but the good news it is rideable and a very unique bike.
  Another section in my blog is the work I have done using Blender 3D software.  This is a 3D animation, render and game software that you can create either pictures or full animations.  Games have been used with the software but with everything I am into I simply have not found the time to check that portion of the software out yet.  Not sure if I ever will.  I enjoy working in Blender as it is a great software to learn and create images of new ideas that come into my head.
  One more section on my blog that I must point you to is the Makerbot 3D printer page.  This is a great little printer that will create 3D objects from your computer files.  I've have just begun to start learning this machine over the past year and hopefully will have one of my own in the next coming year.  It will make a great addition to my CNC machine. 
  So this will give you a little idea of what my blog is about and hopefully you will check it out from time to time to see what new creation I am working on. Again welcome to my site and I hope all your projects turn out the way you've always planned they would.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, Dave! You have some great ideas and amazing talent! I'll be continuing to check out your site to what new things you are working on.
    Thanks,
    Sarah F.

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