Small Business: AGC Knives
I started learning to make knives from youtube videos when I was 16. The experiment quickly became an obsession that led me to building a little machine shop in the shed and selling at the Maker Faire and other art shows.
Process: Each knife starts with a sketch, which used to litter the margins of my homework. A chosen design is traced to bar steel, ground to shape, sharpened, tempered, heat treated, and a wood handle is shaped . I love all the little rabbit holes like learning to make my own mosaic pins or etch my logo into the blade.
Take Aways: I learned that the pursuit of perfection in craft can be an endless process of diminishing returns and that the hourly wage of being an artisan can be low. But for me, the satisfaction of having objects I made exist and be used in the world is immense.
Small Business: Lamps
This is a lamp I designed and decided to optimize for small batch production with a 3D printer.
Starting with a sketch and then a CAD model, I iterated over 35 printed prototypes to create a lamp that works with bulk ordered chords, is quick to assemble, and can not be assembled or used incorrectly. This design can sit on a desk or be mounted on a wall to hang. I have also experimented with non commercialized versions like the making a wooden stand or making the lamp shade out of tubes of rolled wood veneer.
LBM Labs: Mushroom Grow Chamber Product
Cardboard Prototype
By 2022, I had been cultivating edible fungi for a few years and wanted a lower maintenance set up. I set out on this project with a best friend with the goal of making a fruiting mycelial block the centerpiece of a room rather than a sterlight container in the back of a closet. It would be a chamber with computer controlled temperature, humidity, airflow, and light.
CAD Model
Acrylic Prototype
Electronics Chamber
Working prototype with laser engraved bamboo door