Today we have a guest blog from Shawn Galligan, so grab your hot drink, settle in and enjoy the maker’s adventures. Most CPL locations have regular hours, and the Maker Lab is closed for staff training and maintenance until Thursday. We’ll see you then!
4 Days of Advent, 4 Little Numbers
By Shawn Galligan
I’ve heard variations of the same theme: Life is a journey. It’s not about the destination, it’s the journey. Never have I registered this firsthand than while making a Christmas project for my folks. It was a simple idea: make new numbers for my parent’s street sign. Simple. I got more than I bargained for: a new hobby and outlook on life.
OK, away from the all the meaty meta talk. Here’s how my Christmas adventure went down:
In October, a friend of mine and I were chatting about 3D printing. I often had down time at my temp assignment, so I wandered the net looking for amusing articles, and checked in on the status of 3D printing, recharging my excitement. My friend informed me that the library had 3D printers. “No way,” I thought. Then she snapped a pic of the sign for the lab. I was excited to check it out. And, even more serendipitous, I ran into a book at the library all about a guy in California who went on a similar adventure and co-created the Open ROV project. I visited the lab a few weeks later. After a tour, I set about making a storage box for playing cards. (My big picture project: make board game storage components.) While it was printing, I checked out the other toys.
This is where gift ideas for Christmas took shape. I am in a low spot financially this year, so I thought this would be the perfect place to make gifts for my family and roommates. My mom is always picking at me to make gifts, how they did it when they were younger. So, I had a thought. My parents still have a lamppost in our front yard, complete with a light of God street lamp (you can see it three blocks away), and a street sign. But the street sign was looking a little shabby. I remembered Mom mentioning that they would like new numbers. And, look! Inside the shop was a vinyl cutter, where I could make new numbers to update the street sign. Their gift was done. Goal in sight.
Nope, wrong, their gift was just beginning.
Jump to Thanksgiving in Ohio. I took a look at the street sign to get font ideas for the numbers, and chatted with them about what I wanted to make. They showed me something even better: a sign they had brought home from my dad’s childhood house in California. It was a 2′ section of 1′x4′ fencing, and had our family name carved on each side. It had hung outside my dad’s house for 50 years. That much history and awesome was too good to pass up. So, new idea: I remembered there was a CNC milling machine at the library lab. Perfect! Find a piece of wood to match the sign, use the CNC to cut out the house numbers, then attach it to the name sign.
My dad told me we had sealant for the wood, so the project became: bring the name sign back to Chicago with me, make an additional street number sign in the lab, then bring both home at Christmas and seal them up. OK, I’m back in Chicago, and I’m out on a Saturday afternoon, wandering around my neighborhood and area thrift stores for a piece of wood. In the city. Where there are few farms or woods. I forgot to mention, my parents live in Ohio, around the Cuyahoga Valley, in a town called Cuyahoga Falls. And, we have all kinds of wood in our backyard. Our backyard, which opens out onto a park. Which is near a large, large national park area. Yeah, not very forward thinking on my part. So, as I wander the city looking for wood, fate or luck jumped out at me. While scouring a community garden next to a Salvation Army store, I happened on what looked like a piece of driftwood. It was a thick piece of bark, and it happened to be the same dimensions as the name sign. It was perfect, just the right look for my parents’ aesthetic and for the sign. Life, y’know? It has its own ideas for you.
I have the perfect piece of wood, now to shape it. I took it in to the shop and met up with Yvette, the Shapeoko guru. She set me up with Inkscape for my lettering, and we set up a time the following week to put drill to wood. I also met Inventables’ Paul, who was playing with the CNC machine, and we chatted about the project.
The following week, I returned with the driftwood and the name sign, ready to go. The machine had other ideas. Yvette and Paul were running some tests on it, and it wasn’t behaving, like a toddler refusing to eat. Running all over, not following lines. And scaring me a bit, since I had only one perfect piece of driftwood. The answer was found, the machine calmed, the numbers were uploaded, and it was time. The next hurdle: how to clamp down the piece of bark so it could be cut? The wood was not square or practical, as you can see in the pictures. In true maker spirit, the coolest solution was found. We grabbed two plastic rulers with holes, and threaded bolts through the rulers. One end of the wood was belted down under the rulers, and the standard clamp arm was used on the other end. I love those rulers.
Alas, the machine had other plans. Twice, while finishing the first number, it decided to spin out and knock its head against the glass, aborting the print. With the end of the day looming, it would not be finished. We found the problem shortly after: a phantom number in the file, way off to the side. The machine wanted to cut that number, but couldn’t reach it. Still, good news: the machine was working properly. With the shop closing, we left the wood bolted to the Shapeoko, awaiting the morning when Yvette and Paul would set up the rest of the numbers and finish the job. I left that night nervous and excited, hoping for a clean cut.
I returned Saturday, my final day in the city before I left for Ohio for Christmas. Upon entering the shop, I saw the sign, still bolted to the Shapeoko. And, praise the maker, the cut was clean and it looked good. Really good. Not a stray cut on it, so the Shapeoko gods were with us. I unbolted the almost finished sign, and after my other projects completed printing, I left for home. The next step was to paint the numbers. We paint minis at my apartment, so I found some white acrylic model paint and filled in the numbers. I made a pass on the name as well, to unify the colors. I had already grabbed some hook and eye screws, and once the paint was dry, I attached the signs and looked at the almost finished product. That feeling of creation, of bringing about something, that is intoxicating. My mom was right, there is no better feeling than making something yourself. But, I was not safe yet…
December 23, I arrived home. After relaxing a bit with my parents, I checked in with my dad about the sealant so I could finish the signs. Hello, monkey wrench. The seal he had was a polyurethane that, according to the instructions on the can, did not play well with paint. After some Internet searching, discussions and hand wringing, I hung the sign in the basement and applied a first coat of poly to the non-painted parts of the signs so it could dry overnight. The next day, I went out for a quick errand to find a white outdoor paint. I stopped at a paint store, and the wonderful lady helped me pick out a paint. But the smallest can would be way too much paint and very pricey. Now what? How ’bout nail polish? That’s right, the shop lady suggested nail polish. It would hold up to the outdoors (since it is enamel), and a standard bottle is all the amount of paint I would need. And, bonus, it comes with its own brush. With this novel piece of advice in hand, I grabbed a bottle on my way home. Before dinner, I completed a second coat of poly, and let it dry while we went to Christmas Eve services. After service, I applied the nail polish, chuckling while I did it. And off to bed I went, letting it dry while Santa did his magic.
You can see the finished sign in the picture, hanging on the lamppost next to my very happy mom. I couldn’t be happier with it either. A winding road and definitely not the end result I started out with. But the ending was much better than I could have hoped. It looks great, and with regular touch-ups, it should last 50 more years. That’s the new goal.
