learndesign
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Mitre saw safety
Twelve rules for the sliding mitre saw, with diagrams of the two that cause most accidents, hands inside 150 mm of the blade and sliding the head toward yourself. Read, initial, sign, then cut.
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Guides and notes, newest first.
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Panel saw safety
Twelve rules for the Safety Speed vertical panel saw, with diagrams of where hands never go, how a crosscut runs top-down, and why a rip cut only feeds one way. Read, initial, sign, then cut.
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Wood framing standards
How a stick-framed wall is put together in Ontario, and how doors and windows are framed into it. Stud spacing, plates, king and jack studs, headers, cripples and rough openings, with the numbers you need to lay one out.
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Arranging parts for the laser with Fusion Arrange
Modify → Arrange packs every flat part of your model onto a 600 × 300 mm sheet in one go. Set the envelope, pick the components, read the result, then project the layout to a sketch and save it as a DXF.
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Laser-cut maps with Illustrator
Pull real street data out of OpenStreetMap as vectors, turn the roads into cuttable shapes in Illustrator, and decide whether the roads are the wood or the gaps before you send it to the laser.
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Laser cutting meets 3D printing, a stamp
Engrave a die into laser rubber, print a handle that fits it, and you have a tool that neither machine could make alone. Artwork rules, mirroring, Speedy settings and a Fusion handle in one short walk-through.
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Laser-cut topographic layers
A landscape as a stack of plywood contours. Two routes to the cut files, one through a terrain model and Fusion's slicing template, one through real contour lines in QGIS and Illustrator, plus how to pick the vertical scale so Ontario does not come out flat.
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Case study: a 3D revolve vase
Draw half a vase as a spline, spin it around its centre line with Revolve, then add a handle with Pipe. Three features, and the shape is all in the sketch.
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Case study: a functional part from a drawing
Model a flanged bushing from its technical drawing in Fusion: two extrudes and a fillet. The weight on the drawing tells you if you got it right.
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CO₂ laser cutting, explained
What is actually happening inside the laser cutter, and the three ways to use it. Cutting, line engraving and raster engraving are the same beam doing three different jobs.
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Measuring with calipers
Calipers measure three ways, across a part with the big jaws, inside a hole with the small jaws, and down into a hole with the rod on the end. How to hold them for each, what the number means, and how to write it down so you can model from it.
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Fasteners, explained
How to read a screw or bolt by its head, drive, thread, length and material, so you can name it, find a match, and take a product apart without stripping anything.
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Kerf, explained
The laser removes a sliver of material on every cut. Here is how to measure it on your machine and design joints that account for it.
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As-built joints on the piston linkage
The parts are already in place, so tell Fusion how they move. Revolute and slider as-built joints, a sub-assembly you can copy, and limits so the motion stays real.
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Adding joints by hand, the clamp example
Fusion's toggle clamp sample, assembled from six parts with revolute, cylindrical, ball and rigid joints, then given motion limits so the handle stops where a real one would.
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Designing for FDM
The numbers that make a part print well on a filament printer. Tolerances for fits, the overhang rule, minimum feature sizes, and how nozzle size sets both the layer height you can use and the smallest detail you can make.
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Case study: a modular desk organizer
Modelling a tray and a phone stand in the style of Ugmonk's Gather system. Sketch, extrude, cut, project, and a lot of fillets.
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Finger-joint boxes with MakerCase and Fusion
Let MakerCase generate the box, then bring the DXF into Fusion, extrude the panels and snap them together with Align. You end up with a box you can modify in 3D and still cut flat.
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Finite state machines
States, transitions, triggers, guards, actions. How to describe an interactive system before you build it, with a turnstile, a video game character and a tap-access door.
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Half-lap intersecting slices
Two flat profiles, a slot in each, and they slide together into a 3D form. The fastest way to get a solid-looking object out of sheet material.
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Case study: modelling with sketches (bike bracket)
Fusion's Model from Sketch sample, step by step. Two-sided extrude to an object, symmetric extrude from the mid-plane, projecting a circle onto a face, mirroring a feature, a fillet, and a mass check at the end.
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A parametric photo frame
Five user parameters drive a 3D-printable frame. Change the width and height and the frame rebuilds for a 4×6, an 8×10 or a 200 mm square without touching the sketch. Also a reference for fully defined sketches and the constraint tools that get you there.
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3D-printed gears for 1" pegboard
Any gear you add to a pegboard has to mesh with the ones already there and land on a 1" hole. Here is the arithmetic, the Spur Gear add-in settings, and a motion link to prove it.
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A parametric piping bag tip
A 3D-printable icing nozzle where the number of teeth, the wall thickness and the diameter are all parameters. Loft, thicken, emboss, circular pattern, pipe.
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Rotational slicing in Fusion
Draw one section, revolve two discs, pattern the section around an axis and cut every slot with one Combine. A vase, a lampshade or a sculpture from a single sheet.
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Slicing and lamination
Split any solid into layers the thickness of your sheet, arrange them on the material and cut. Bigger than a 3D printer can manage, and every layer is one flat outline.
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Sweep, revolve and extrude
Extrude pushes a profile in a straight line. Sweep drags it along a path. Revolve spins it around an axis. An organic bench and Fusion's trumpet sample show all three.
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Traffic light state machine on Arduino
Six LEDs, two buttons, four states, no delay(). A two-direction traffic light where a timer or a button press moves the system on, and the code is one switch statement.