Kwartzlab Society Inc.

 
Peter Nesbitt and Rob Green discuss their Dalek Auric project. Part 1 of 2.
 

More vids after the break...

So I thought that it might be fun to become a prospector, it is an old and honourable vocation.

so here are pictures of all the interesting tools we have...and a picture of Simon...my dog - gus

 
EXTERMINATE! It was another great Tuesday Open Night at kwartzlab this week. We had a double-header of Rob Green and Peter Nesbitt's fantastic Dalek Auric (show above) and Eric Boyd's Sensebridge gear. Click through for some video and pics.
 

More after the break...
 

The CNC router machine has been busy cutting more CNC art experiments. The larger face above is 3-1/2 inches wide and the smaller faces are 1-1/2 inches wide.
I wanted to see how small I could make the faces and still be recognizable.

The faces were all done with a staight .045 inch cutting bit.

Click through to see more cnc art fun...

Just a reminder that tomorrow night is the public's last chance to see the oil paintings of James Nye in Kwartzlab during our Tuesday Open Night 7:00pm - 10:00pm
![James Nye][James Nye]

 
A funny thing happened on the way to the Site3 open house...
 

More after the break...
 

 
Karl and I took a ride over to Toronto on Saturday to see and support our friends at Site3, a "colaboratory" that has just opened its doors. Here's our good friend Seth Hardy demo'ing a Rubens' Tube (made by Adam Smith, I believe). Propane is pumped into this tube and escapes through a series of holes on the top. A speaker at one end of the tube plays a sine wave (or other sound) which changes the height of the various flames and approximates the wave form. Site3 loves fire.
 

More after the break...
 

Now that the CNC Router is complete, I have been experimenting with CNC art. The really cool thing about using a computer and a CNC router to create art is that the end results can be unpredictable and surprising. My first experiment was to take a picture of a tree, convert it to black and white, invert the image and then render it for cutting. I liked the idea of taking a living tree, converting it to ones and zeros, and then cutting the image into a processed wood product (MDF). The cutting path is one continuous spiral starting from the top outer edge.

The computer generated cutting path for a circular tree.

Another experiment was to render a picture of Audrey Hepburn using an x-axis raster technique. The Audrey on the left of the MDF panel was done at a lower line resolution. The panel was spray painted black and then white was added.

Click through for more art...