What Will You Make with 3D Carving?

We believe that the best way to learn is to make something. This book shows you how to make five projects. In the process of making each project, you learn the techniques and can then apply them to your own projects. The photo below show the five projects that we’ll make together.

You can see more community examples of these five projects at https://www.inventables.com/challenges.

We want this book to inspire you. So, in addition to the five projects we’ll work on together, we’ve shown you a few amazing creations from some of the greatest makers we know. On the cover of this book is an incredible 3D carved guitar by Steve Carmichael. In Chapter 9, you’ll see projects from other great makers. Maybe you won’t actually make your own guitar—that’s a major undertaking—but seeing how it’s done, reading the instructions, and watching the video on the Inventables website might inspire you to design your own over-the-top project. Greatness: that’s what we want to inspire.

How You Can Get Started 3D Carving

For each project in the book, I’ll outline everything you need. Of course, you’ll need access to a 3D carving machine like X-Carve (Figure P-1) or Carvey (Figure P-2) in order to complete the project. If you don’t have access to a machine, you can find them at many schools, libraries, and makerspaces near you. If you aren’t able to locate one, go to the Inventables website forum. People there are quite friendly and they might carve it for you, or you might discover that there is someone who already has a machine that lives near you. Even if you don’t have access to the machine, you can learn a lot from the design process. You can do everything except the carving until you eventually gain access to a machine. For safety reasons, children under the age of 18 should be supervised by an adult when using X-Carve or Carvey.

Figure P-1. X-Carve by Inventables is a 3D carving machine designed to help hobbyists and small businesses get started

Figure P-2. Carvey by Inventables is a desktop 3D carving machine that contains sound and dust in an enclosed space

We believe it is important for every school and every library in the world to have a 3D carving machine. Anyone who wants to learn about digital manufacturing—students, teachers, parents, and the general public—can exercise their creativity if they have access to machines. We are starting with a simple goal: by the end of 2020, we want a 3D carving machine in every school in the USA.

In 2015, we committed to President Obama and the White House that Inventables would donate a 3D carving machine to a school in every state. We delivered on that promise. This was our way of getting that process started in schools across the country. We still have a long way to go, and we need your help. If you are a teacher, parent, or student who wants a 3D carving machine but doesn’t have the funding, please go to Donors Choose and start a campaign. Tweet the link @inventables and we’ll help promote it as much as we can. If you get a 3D carving machine, let us know and we’ll add you to the map at http://www.inventables.com/50states.

In addition to schools, we’re working with libraries and camps to widen access in all communities.

Getting Started

Each project in this book assumes that you have access to an X-Carve or Carvey. It also assumes that you have completed the online step-by-step introductory guides for the machine(s) you are using. If you haven’t, here’s where you can find the guides:

• X-Carve

• Carvey

If you don’t have access to a machine, you can still enter one of our Maker Challenges digitally using our free design software, Easel. To submit your entry, go to https://www.inventables.com/challenges.

Getting Parts

There are two Make: kits that need to be purchased in order to complete the projects in this book: the Getting Started with 3D Carving Materials kit, and the Getting Started with 3D Carving Finishing and Bits kit. For teachers, each student will need a material kit, but one bit and finishing kit will work for every 10 to 15 students. If you don’t have the kits, the full list of materials available for each project and can be purchased from Inventables a la carte.

Conventions Used in This Book

The following typographical conventions are used in this book:

Italic

Indicates new terms, URLs, email addresses, filenames, and file extensions.

Constant width

Used for program listings, as well as within paragraphs to refer to program elements such as variable or function names, databases, data types, environment variables, statements, and keywords.

Using Examples

This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the example projects in this book in your own exploration or curriculum. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you’re reproducing a significant portion of the projects and reselling it. For example, writing a curriculum that uses several projects from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a book of examples from Make: books does require permission. Answering a question by citing this book and quoting example code does not require permission. However, incorporating a significant amount of example projects from this book into your product’s documentation does require permission.

We appreciate, but do not require, attribution. An attribution usually includes the title, author, publisher, and ISBN. For example: “Getting Started With 3D Carving by Zach Kaplan (Maker Media). Copyright 2017, 978-1-680-45099-6.”

If you feel your use of example projects falls outside fair use or the permission given here, feel free to contact us at [email protected].

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How to Contact Us

Please address comments and questions concerning this book to the publisher:

• Maker Media, Inc.
• 1700 Montgomery Street, Suite 240
• San Francisco, CA 94111
• 877-306-6253 (in the United States or Canada)
• 707-639-1355 (international or local)

Make: unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages. Make: celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your will. The Make: audience continues to be a growing culture and community that believes in bettering ourselves, our environment, our educational system—our entire world. This is much more than an audience, it’s a worldwide movement that Make: is leading—we call it the Maker Movement.

To learn more about Make:, visit us at makezine.com. You can learn more about the company at the following websites:

• Maker Media: makermedia.com
• Maker Faire: makerfaire.com
• Maker Shed: makershed.com

If you have comments or questions about the book, please email us at [email protected].

Acknowledgments

I have a lot of people to acknowledge and thank. This book took a lifetime to write. I’d like to first thank my parents Larry and Carrie Kaplan for providing an environment that encouraged learning by discovery and asking why. This provided the foundation for everything I’ve achieved academically and professionally.

I’d like to thank my wife Allison, the most loving wife in the world, for giving me the space and time to run a company and somehow write this book at the same time. To my son Dylan, your curious nature and fearless enthusiasm is an inspiration.

There have been several people that played a significant influence on my life that specifically led to this book. My high school Sci-Tech teachers Jim Howie and Jeff Jordan who ignited the spark in digital manufacturing two decades before it was en vogue. Bart Dring, our Chief Engineer at Inventables, who designed MakerSlide and Carvey, and teaches our team with patience. Inventables software engineering team; Jeff Talbot, Paul Kaplan, Jim Rodovich, Ruwan Egoda Gamage, David Altenburg, Adam Hinz, and Eric Dobroveanu who build and improve Easel every day. Inventables’ Marketing team: Alex Berger, Michael Fischer, Sam Alaimo, Mo Stych, Valerie Frank, and Nick Rissmeyer, who came up with the idea for Maker Challenges and put together the companion kits for this book. My assistants, Jules Woodard and Emily Michel, who somehow put up with me, my questions, and requests during the writing of this book. Finally, Edward Ford who reintroduced me to the field after being away for over a decade.

I’ve also gotten support in all sorts of ways from Phil Black from True Ventures who believed in me before it was crystal clear how Inventables would succeed. Eric Antonow, Richard Yoo, Morris Miller, Mike Hakimi, Bob Sabin, Georges Harik, Matt Mullenweg, Jameson Hsu, Joel Yarmon, Mark Hasbrock, Paul Bricault, Jon Callaghan, Ryan O’Nell, Sam Yagan, Steve Farsht, and Richard Lincoln for continued encouragement, ideas, support, and feedback as this journey unfolded.

You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.

—Richard Branson