Rocky start

A little update on the wood staining:

Last night I mixed a bag of green tea in lukewarm water with some white vinegar and placed a piece of extra fine steel wool in the jar.
I used this after about an hour on a piece of the plywood I will be using for the model and although some staining could be seen not soon after, this morning it was really dark.

I ordered about a liter of distilled white vinegar, which supposedly will work even better.

Have I ever mentioned how much fun I’m having?

I also received the coarse sand. I will need to test whether the wood glue works, and it does seem like it will be rather messy.

Once I have the whole process figured out, I do wonder how long it will take me to make one, and how much it should be priced at.

I still need to work on my branding, which is something I struggle with, but I know it will come to me soon.

At the 5th meeting at SDX, we looked at some of the shelves in the store to take inspiration for our own displays, which we will prototype/test next week.

It’s a good thing I collected some lovely rocks, branches and pinecones, even if I didn’t know what I would use them for at the time. They will be perfect to place around the small pedestal which will have the single statue I created on it.

Unfortunately everything in the box got moldy – serves me right, leaving damp natural things in a plastic box for weeks!

The shelf is D 50cm x W 80 cm, which is super helpful to know. It will allow me to make a small cardboard model of it and see the space I have to fill – or rather keep mostly empty to focus the attention on the product.

I will also really need to focus on my branding and write my bio. Having a larger sheet of paper in a nice photo frame maybe, or multiple sheets to tell my and the piece’s story will help it to sell.

On my way home I collected some leaves which look similar to the tropical ones found in the Amazon, but the singular strands. My thinking is, either preserve real leaves and use some form of glueing/wiring to create a simple tropical/eco backdrop for the display, or make it out of paper I get from the scrap store. I would prefer to stop using Amazon to purchase anything else (isn’t that ironic).

I will also laser cut a stand for the large bio which I will probably engrave, and have a photograph printed of the San Rafel waterfalls.

While I was out, I received the wood glue and the fire extinguisher. This weekend I’ll be cutting and gluing!

This weekend I’m planning on going on another little moss-and plant-collecing adventure in town. I should try to find some more of this type of moss, and make a box to try to propagate it, like this video shows. That would mean I always have some to use, because I’m not completely sure I will be able to find enough to use even for one product. It’s also not sustainable to take it all from where it grows.

February 24th

Yesterday I did a little testing of the wood glue on plywood with moss, another piece of plywood, and some of the coarse sand.

The results were great – the plywood piece glued on perfectly, the moss is on pretty securely (although the ones I collected are holding a lot better than the purchased one, and looks better, too), and the sand, although streaky, is holding on great. All I will need to make sure of is that the coating of the glue is an even layer.

I sent a detailed e-mail to a Napier lecturer with all the questions I have regarding the electrical requirements for the unit and its testing.

Let’s hope they will not get immediately sick of me and will be able to help me understand the situation a little better.

My main question was whether I need resistors and what type, and if I will need to have the unit tested before selling it.

My e-mail was forwarded to Mr Felix Jarvis, who was kind enough to explain most of what I asked. The general feel I got from his email was that I should not use these LEDs as they require too much power and would get too hot. I big thank you to him for his help.

So what I will do is purchase even more LEDs that are more traditional and require less power, as well as some 56 Ohm resistors. It is a shame because my USP is being eco-friendly, but it’s a necessary part of the learning process.

In this video, I finally found some easy to understand explanation as to what I might need.

Exchanging the variables to my own circuit:

2 LED bulbs, 20mA each: 2 x 20mA = 40mA total current

5V USB cable, 3.2V voltage drop on each white LED: 5V – 3.2V = 1.8V resistor voltage drop (parallel)

Resistor needed (R=V/I): 1.8V / 0.04A = 45Ohm

Resistor power needed (P=I2xR): 0.04A x 0.04A x 45Ohm = 0.072W

It looks like introducing the switch will have no effect on this.

So I purchased 100pcs 5mm side cool-white LEDs, and 50pcs 47Ohm resistors from Ebay.

One thing to keep in mind when soldering will be, that the shorter leg of the LEDs is the negative polarity. The resistor and switch have no polarity, and as the diagram suggests (which took me quite a while to figure out, this website helped, and am not completely sure it will work), the resistor and switch will go on one side of the USB (the red 5V+ cable), while the negative side of the LEDs will go on the negative side of the USB (the black ground cable)

Just received the distilled white vinegar in a pretty glass bottle. I do have a special place in my heart for glass bottles… perhaps an idea for a project in the future.

With the knowledge of how the circuitry will look, I created a 3D CAD version of it to help me understand how I will have to solder.

February 25th

While working on the CAD design takes a really long time and is tedious and repetitive, often frustrating because many things go wrong with it, it helps me to see what the finished product might look like, and whether the dimensions would work or if they have to be tweaked.

The waterfalls will each require about 10 cm length of fibre optic cable (1 for the small one, 2 for the larger one – 3 x 10 = 30 cm fibre optic/product).

Each of the 15 x 2 (twisted together) strands of the “cage” will require about 175 mm aluminium wires (30 x 175 = 5.25 m wire/product).

The largest piece of plywood will need to be 165 x 105 mm.

Sometimes researching how to do something easier works out really well.

I found a Fusion360 Add-On called Shaper Origin, which allows me to simply click on a face of a body in the design and save it as an SVG file, which is one of the extensions the X-Tool Creative Space laser cutting program accepts.

Setting up the layers to be cut out, with engravings for the numbers, so I do not mix them up, as well as a scoring for the layer on top, so that I know where to glue it is proving to be a challenge.

I started the 30-day free trial with the Lightburn program because the X-Tool Creative Space seems very limiting, but it is definitely a learning curve. As it is very late I cannot test the machine right now, but tomorrow I will try to make it work.

I believe Lightburn does not work with Wifi so I will have to connect to the machine via USB.

February 27th

Yesterday I was working on saving each of the layers as an SVG file, and then using the Lightburn program to arrange them on 200×300 mm sheets. I did my best to save as much of the material as possible, and with this method it seems like 8 sheets will be enough for one product. If I were to create many of them, I could possibly save more by putting multiple of the same number on one sheet, but for small production this will work.

Also, small update, the resistors arrived. Now I am only waiting for the LEDs and the cables.

What’s left to do:

Laser cut/etch the 8 sheets
Test the best wood stain method
Stain the layers 3; 4d; 15b
Collect dark green sheet moss from The Haining
Test solder electronics (must wait for cables and LEDs to arrive)
Glue layers together
- Solder electronics
- Insert fibre optics

Glue on coarse sand
Glue on moss
Find the best method to twist 2 wires together for strength
Create wire cage
Write/design bio
Design shelf display
- Create large tropical leaf background

February 28th

After a small mental breakdown brought on by my inability to connect my laser cutter to Lightburn (the machine started screaming at me with an alarm simply when I first tried to frame a test piece, which was rather nerve-racking), as well as a general sense of dread due to lack of time and and overabundance of tasks and chores, I feel a little more ready to continue with the project.

A podcast I was listening to reminded me of a tool I used earlier this year for a project but stopped because my perfectionist tendencies were making the task take a lot longer than it should have.

Miro was also recommended by one of my lecturers, and I decided to try and use it to find the perfect brand name.

I used to be vehemently against the idea of ChatGPT and similar AI tools – and I am still vary of what it might mean for humanity’s future – but I thought I would try it out for this exercise, and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised. I may even use it sometimes instead of a Google search!

Here’s where I left the Miro brand name mind-dump:

Seeing the photograph of the San Rafael falls next to my 3D render, I noticed and tweaked a few areas, mainly the hills in the background. Deleting 3 tiny pieces will only help in the production process.

A long walk in town in multiple areas where I expected to find moss (and rocks) resulted in me figuring out where my favorite choice of type usually grows, and collecting enough to cover at least one product and try to propagate my own in a box.

I did eventually forget to save any to propagate… I was rather tired, not to mention I’m not even sure I have everything I would need to do it.

The small type (probably pincushion moss? I tried to figure it out but I can’t decide which ones I found) grows mostly in shaded areas on the road, often near bins (I made sure to avoid these ones), and in between the stones on walls on the street. The kind which is a lot more common and can be found pretty much anywhere in the area where I live is a lot bigger and has a brighter colour, which wouldn’t fit the design.

The large rocks will hopefully look nice on the shelf once cleaned.

I researched how people usually clean rocks, and there was mention of warm water, soap, baking soda and an old toothbrush, so I used all of them.

And here is the cleaning (about 4 times) and preserving process for the first batch of moss. It’s worth noting how much difference using my phone’s flash makes when taking photos – see the last two images, with, and without.

And the second batch, mainly the kind found between grooves.

I am a little concerned about how much dirt and rocks are still left on the bottom, but I really tried my best to clean them as much as possible. The roots are probably keeping it all together, and some of the dirt was already hardened. The colour and velvety texture are gorgeous, so I’m just hoping it won’t be a problem that it is so much thicker than some of the other pieces.

I found another tool similar to Miro which I might actually prefer, called Milanote. It makes it easy to create moodboards, and mind-dump ideas.

March 1st

Good morning!

Today, I decided that I will not feel bad about the things I am not so good at or too keen on doing.

There are plenty of things I enjoy and do a good job at, and the things I recognize that I am not, I have the ability to decide whether they are worth pursuing. If I am not so great at sketching but am excellent at research (and writing blogs, if I do say so myself), then maybe I should play to my strengths. I’m not exactly sure what that will look like, but it’s an idea.

I also just noticed that the free plan on Milanote only allows 100 pictures. I will look into a student plan, but if that’s not an option I will have to go back to Miro.
I often worry about how many things I use as a student that I will simply lose access to, or will have to pay a hefty amount for, once I graduate. But that is a worry for another day.

Yesterday I put together a really quick mockup of what I think the shop shelf layout might look like, and started making a large leaf shape from the Amazon rainforest. I first hand drawn a few ideas on paper, then when I found my favorite I cut it out and traced it on a dark green card I had. In attempting to cut this, I managed to tear it but it should be okay with a little glue. I also plan on trying to use wires on the back, but that may not work because of how stiff the card is.

I also had the crazy idea to use the blue chiffon material I have and drape it on the shelf as if it were water, and started making a large lily leaf from the Amazon.

I first just drew the shape on paper, then traced on a green coloured paper based divider sheet and cut it out, folded the edges, drew on and folded where I thought the veins of the leaf would be, then traced the base on dark green thick cardboard, cut it out, glued it on with the wood glue I had. I used three layers of masking tape on the edges to make it thicker, the last layer I folded about every centimetre to have a tiny vein shape. I found a nice magenta marker which I coloured the edges with, and a similar coloured plastic folder which I traced and cut out, then folded the same way as the large veins. I used some double-sided tape to permanently attach it to the top. The result is pretty realistic, and I plan on making a white lily as well, out of cardstock or a similar material.

My thinking is, I can place it on the shelf, and have my business cards displayed on it.

I also made a lily, just because.

And finished the large leaf. I cut out the rest of it, coloured all the edges with a similarly coloured dark green marker, and drew on some veins as well. I then strenghtened the middle (and glued together the two torn pieces) with a hot glue gun.

Then I put together a few renewed versions of the shelf display (which I simulated with with 5 pieces of A3 white card temporarily stuck on my coffee table with pink tack). I added the lily ( will probably add a small round heavy object in the middle of it when it is displayed, right now my bag will be heavy enough) and the lily pad, some business cards, and on the second version some pieces of thin plywood (because I’m pretty sure that, or thick engraved card is what I will use for mine) on it, the rocks, and the blue chiffon (which I’m not sure would be a good idea . The book is only there in place of the bio which I have still not written (oops) or printed, and the two boxes of moss is there to simulate the finished product.

The final thing I did today was creating 15 pieces of twisted wires of 175 mm length, and making a quick model for tomorrow’s meeting, to see the scale and general shape of the product on the store shelf with the rest of the decoration.

I used three sheets of card for sturdiness and to allow the wires to sit in the holes in the middle card, and glued them together with 1 cm long bamboo straw pieces as spacers.

It was difficult to shape the wires, but due to how I used a folded-in-half pice of wire for each, it meant the thickness of the wire created a loop on the top, which then allowed me to put another small piece of wire through each and twist it together for strength. The wires are still really playable and I may make the decision to use a different kind, perhaps upcycle some.

Week 5