Jimmy went at it again. Check out his new project. This one is a little more approachable than the stool. It’s also scalable because you can make it bigger or smaller depending on the number of hooks you need.
What do you think?
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While obviously very utilitarian, it didn’t inspire me the way the stool project did. This forum is rife with shop stuff like this (i.e. tool organizers, dust shoes, waste boards, controller boxes, etc.). I’d love to see more creative, outside the box stuff. In the same vein of your comment where makers forget about the real world context of their creations, I think we need to expand our creativity to outside the shop. That’s one of the biggest reason’s I’m making a Limbert Tabouret table instead of a shop stool.
Based on a thread that I recently got sucked into, this is perfect. My heart, however, agrees with @MidnightMaker.
Hey @midnightmaker and @earwigger OK let’s turn this thread into a brainstorm. Toss out some “outside the shop” ideas!
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Zach,
How about a X-Carve whirligig contest?
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Interesting things on my docket that I have to make for other people: A more weedless paddleboard fin with greater surface area to provide greater directional stability; a drink holder (similar to my Yeti holder) which could be a cool contest; a board game (a friend invented it but we could do the classics AND the game pieces).
Community collaboration projects could be cool if we invent something new: Build a boat for one person; Machine to demonstrate mechanical advantage; Rube Goldberg devices (use the Mouse trap game as an example), but instead of trap a mouse it could be, remove a bottle cap, fold a shirt, water a plant… or … a mouse trap. Make a glider. Make a musical instrument. etc. Make an entirely wooden computational device - or is that crazy?
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How about office/desk accessories:
Pen/Pencil Holders
Business Card Holders
Tape Dispenser
Memo Pad Holder
Paper Clip / Dish
Cell Phone Stand
Letter Organizer
Filefolder Holder
Coffee Cup Rest / Coaster
Mousepad
Picture Frame
Journal Holder / Box
Calendar
etc…
I thought I knew what it meant but I had to look it up. We used to have a few of these. THIS would be great. Let’s do it!
I like the idea of doing a project together as a community that is quite clever.
A contest sounds good, with the amount of creativity in this community I can only imagine how crazy that would be! A few things I am thinking of are … Treasure chest, reproduction advertisement signs, something working with gears not just as a decoration, custom cell phone holder for the car (little more difficult then just a prop up stand) perhaps a working padlock and key, mason jar candy dispenser or things with moving interacting pieces of wood … I attempted scrabble pieces true scale and man they were just really too small, but some types of games has anyone made Dominos yet?
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The use of heat to shape the acrylic is super interesting. Did not know you could do that. Will need to think about how to use that material more and use that technique.
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Totally love that Limbert tabouret. Got me to look up some of his other designs, many of which are also beautiful. Could be neat to do a designer competition. Pick whatever strikes your fancy from someone and try to execute it.
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@RogerAndre yea when you first carve out a unique shape and then heat the acrylic for a bend things get interesting. You could do an apple watch stand or a docking station too.
Okay @Zach_Kaplan , you asked for it. 
As a classically trained woodworker, there are tons of things to make that are many times over more difficult to make by hand than with a CNC carver. For example, the Limbert tabouret table. When I made another version years ago, it required an extremely accurate set of templates and was very laborious to produce. That is one reason why making the other version for the DiResta stool contest was so intriguing to me. I was able to compare contrast the effort involved in producing one of each. Although mine was made from MDF instead of QSWO, the principles are still the same.
The time to draw up the “stool” for the contest was artificially increased due to my inexperience with AutoCAD and Inkscape. The machine time was only a few hours and probably could be optimized with some settings tweaks. I probably had 20 hours into the first table due to the fussiness of the lock-miter joint on the legs. If I had been able to run a square board down the table saw at 45°, the load that blank into an XC1000, it would have saved me literally days in the shop. Making this level of fine furniture and being able to reproduce in sufficient quantity to be profitable is one of my main reasons for justifying the purchase.
But I digress. Here are some from my list of projects to be done that have absolutely nothing to do with the machine or the shop:
Custom inlay longboard - Materials Bounty
Adirondack beach chairs - once again, very time consuming to make by hand
Midnight Maker logo coasters - for when I add a freakin’ laser
Flat pack picnic table - time consuming to layout by hand. Fits single sheet of plywood, but would have to tweak design to fit within 1000mm.
Stickley waste basket - similar concept to the Limbert tables
Hood scoop mold/plug for my pickup - very important to have perfect symmetry which would be difficult to sculpt.
Sailboat mast cap - I’m building a boat that requires the purchase of a plastic plug to go into the end of an aluminum tube. Why not make one custom for the hardware I selected?
Sailboat - Kits are offered that are cut out by CNC. I have the AutoCAD drawings for the boat I built by hand. Will experiment with cutting parts out which will require a tiling exercise that I’m working on perfecting. The concept of tiling is extremely important to be able to expand the versatility of the 1000mm^2 bed.
Boat coffee table - If you build the boat mentioned above at half scale, it makes an unbelievably cute coffee table. This is also another revenue stream.
Iron Man arc reactor - About the most obvious prop I could think of making after Wolverine claws.
Wolverine claws - Both of which involve the stiffening mod and machining aluminum.
Mjolner - Next most obvious prop (Thor’s hammer).
Balance bike - Tip Jar Project - almost ready to post!
Teak decking - custom teak decking for the yacht of your choice. Mine will be a 12’ sailboat.
Jeep Wrangler parts - Recently bought the maker-mobile and want to start fabbing aluminum parts to customize it.
Aluminum bumper - Some guys on the Jeep forums are drawing up, cutting and welding their own custom, heavy-duty bumpers. A set of front/rear bumpers is more expensive than an XC1000. Plus, if I get rear-ended, I can always make another one!
Knife handle scales - Working on project for digitizing a knife, then drawing the scales and cutting them out of black linen Micarta. Materials bounty? Could also use HDPE, Delrin, ABS, etc.
Kydex sheath mold - Once again, digitize the knife, then use the offset app to create a mold that presses the thermo-formable plastic into a perfect profile. Materials bounty?
Compass rose inlay - Have tried these manually on several projects, always with mixed success. Digital precision would eliminate that. Uses contrasting wood species. Materials bounty? Thought about incorporating that into the skateboard project above.
NACA foils for sailboats - Laser sailors, etc. spend big bucks on precision molded daggerboards and rudders. I want to try to create one from scratch to see if it’s profitable.
Wooden clock - A few people have delved into this already on the forum. I’ve gotten permission from Clayton Boyer to do one of his designs and post a sample drawing.
Greene & Greene details - Much like the Limbert/Stickley projects, Greene & Greene have details like cloud lifts and indents that not only jazz up their pieces, but are very time consuming to do by hand, usually because you have to build a jig first.
Arched Aurora table - Darrell Peart’s take on classic Greene & Greene. Once again, would save half of the production time not making the jigs.
San Juan islands topo map - Making 3D maps from bathymetry data is one of the main reasons I wanted to get an XC.
Linoleum block print - Way before we had the contest last year, I wanted to make some classic looking Craftsman block prints, usually involving oak leaves, acorns, dragonflies, etc. I also have several very cool fonts in the Arts & Crafts style.
Wooden bowls - I’m fascinated by flip-carving. Making sure the work piece is registered properly so that you can flip it and make two-sided carves. I think some sort of bowl would be a great place to start. Once again, a technique that needs to be perfected, documented and shared with the community.
.
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Here is a treasure chest i did (only the magic gold coin was done on the CNC though). This chest automatically opens and plays pirate music when the gold coin is placed on top. This used an Arduino brain. It was for a kids birthday party treasure hunt (they had to find the coin to open the chest that was filled with loot). The key lock on the side was to prevent ending up on the evening news for the wrong reason.
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I’ve seen people with backyard Yahtzee sets. I was thinking of cutting out a template for the dots on the die so I can easily spray paint them. The die are too tall for the stock z carve z height and I figured a painting template would make everything super easy and quick.
Another thing that would fall into backyard games would be stuff for a mini golf setup. Props and obstacles for a course. It would make a nice group project for everyone to design one obstacle/hole.
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Also, in the Prop-Making department, I’m looking into doing some fullered (blood-groove) sword designs (ala Conan the Barbarian, etc.). Over the last 30 years, I’ve tried to make swords by hand. First, I started by apprenticing to a bladesmith after my Metallurgy class in college, then later making swords by hand out of MDF with a palm sander. Made a really nice bokken from Ipe with router templates and barely managed to dodge a tear-out issue with the wood grain continuously changing direction. Now I want to draw up something epic, whether it be Arnold’s sword or the Heron Mark sword from the Wheel of Time series or something else (Highlander?). Digitally controlled carving is perfect for making movie swords out of anything…
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The Wheel of Time is one of my favorite series! (A love/hate relationship of course, still haven’t read the last book.) But a Heron Mark Sword would be awesome!
Did you happen to catch Adam Savage’s Hellboy Sword build? A ton of useful techniques!