Mark's Adventures
Life's exciting.....get on board
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"Bringing the Imagination Alive"®
3D Printing & Woodworking
I just got started with 3D Printing the last 6 years - and have been learning "RHINO" and "GRASSHOPPER". All the designs are designed and programmed from scratch. I then send the files out to be printed. The woodworking is in my shop in my home. A recent addition to my woodshop is the Axiom CNC (computer-numerically-controlled) milling machine for carving wood. All designs for the CNC work are also from scratch often importing 3D files from my CAD programs into VCarvPro for use with the CNC milling machine.
A 12 sided figure - Dodecahedron - with repeating pentagons on each side changing color as they spiral down. 3D printed in plastic. 3 inches in diameter.
Programmed in Rhino / Grasshopper


Last week I celebrated my 35th anniversary with my beautiful wife Sharon. We have traveled much of the world together over the years. So I made her a serving tray signifying our travels around the world. I started with laminated woods alternating dark blue and light colored. Then, using my CNC milling machine I carved the shapes to different depths to reveal the different colors, then covered the whole thing with a clear epoxy and finally sanded and polished it all down. The center piece of the compass is brass.



I just designed this beer bottle opener. It is designed to have a woven pattern that would be virtually impossible in the real world to fabricate with metal. But with 3D printing it is possible. Prnted in stainless steel. And I don't even like beer. Maybe it's time to acquire the taste.
Programmed in Rhino.

I took one of my original computer designs from a few years ago and had it 3D printed in brass. They first 3D print the object in wax, and then they do a lost wax process to form it in brass. The shape is a dodecahedron (12 sides and 20 vertices) with patterns on the faces and vertices that all wrap around to connect to each other and made to look like a bridge truss system from the 1850s. 3 inches in diameter. $600 printing cost - oouch! But it looks nice.
Programmed in Rhino/Grasshopper.

Two small turned bowls - Birdseye Maple and Walnut - with clear epoxy resin in cutout areas. 7 inch diameter.



The backside
A second one with a rectangular pattern
Copyright Mark Gottlieb 2022
Walnut serving board with maple and bloodwood strips. Inlaid with brass rods, tubes, and strips.


Bamboo serving tray. Black laminate on top. CNC milled the pattern on the rim - then filled the cut-outs with a clear epoxy resin. Then turned the final piece on the lathe to smooth it all out. 15" in diameter.


Copyright Mark Gottlieb 2022
Made this with a friend who wanted this for an upcoming Christmas gift for a family member. CNC milled from a man-made laminate mataerial with alternating colors. 18" wide.


Walnut bowl turned on my lathe. Accents in Bloodwood and Maple. Compass is 3D printed in Brass - with clear epoxy.
12 inches in diameter.


Walnut & Birdseye maple. Compass is 3D printed in brass. Clear epoxy coating. 9 inches in diameter.

Bowl turned on my lathe. Used some special man-made materials known as Richlite Cascade. Using their Black Diamond & Natural materials. I used carbide cutting tools (shown in the left photo on the wall) and it still felt like I was cutting stone. 11 inches in diameter.


This project has a story: I started this piece two days before my mountain biking accident (which left me partially paralized on my left side). I got halfway done. And this piece sat on my lathe for the last two years. I was afraid to finish it up because the lathe has a very powerful motor spinning 5 pounds of wood around at over a thousand RPM, and the carving is done by tools you have to hold with your hands. But I bit the bullet last weekend and gave it a go - finished it up on the two-year anniversary from my mountain biking accident. The center portion is carved on my CNC routing machine. Teak and aluminum – 16 inch diameter.

A Fruit plate.
Made on my CNC milling
machine out of walnut.

"Remote camera trigger". I was in a mountain biking accident in early 2020. My left side is partially paralyzed today and I am unable to lift my left hand up above chest height to help control the camera. So I 3D designed and printed a plastic holder into which I can stick a shutter release button. Now I can control all the camera settings with my right hand, and my left hand can rest on this remote button trigger on the tripod and control the shutter. This allows me to take photographs again. I also made a second one for a monopod with a slightly different mounting arrangement.




Copyright Mark Gottlieb 2021
"Lissajous curve" - just a pretty mathematical formula. 3D printed in plastic.
Programmed in Grasshopper/Rhino. 9 inches across.

"Mathematical Shell" is 3D printed in white plastic. Display base is walnut.
Programmed in Rhino-Grasshopper / VCarvePro.

'This cheese serving board is carved on my CNC milling machine out of Bamboo with the top and bottom layer consisting of compressed paper. Programmed in Rhino/VCarvePro.

The interlocking chain (2.5" diameter) was 3D printed in stainless steel. The display base is designed to carry over the chain theme. It was carved out of bamboo on my CNC milling machine.
Programmed in Rhino/VCarvePro.


'The Hidden Names of God'. The 3D printed (gold-plated steel) sphere has the top 21 names of God in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic used in the Bible embossed on the inside of the spiral sphere. Its up to the viewer to use the magnifying glass to search out the names printed on the inside of the spiral. The base is CNC milled out of Bloodwood. On the bottom side of the base is engraved the scripture from Jeremiah 29:13 "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart."
Programmed in Rhino/Grasshopper/VCarvePro.


El Shaddai El Elyon El Olam (YHWH) Jireh Nissi Shalom Sabbaoth Maccaddesheem Ro’I Tsidkenu Shammah Elohim Israel Adonai Theos Kyrios Patēr Abba Iēsous Yeshua Pneuma

Copyright Mark Gottlieb 2020
A 12 sided 'Dodecahedron' CNC milled out of special bamboo wood with a thin laminate of black material on the top and bottom sides. Each side is cut separately and later glued together. 8 inches high.
Programmed in Rhino/Grasshopper/VCarvePro.



A ruler to help the grand-kids keep track of their height as they grow.
Photo taken just before I removed it from the CNC milling machine.

Water drop ripples in walnut. CNC milled. 20 inches long. Programmed in Grasshopper/Rhino.

A beautiful undulating surface of hexagons. CNC milled out of bloodwood. 12" wide.
Programmed in Grasshopper/Rhino.

A beautiful undulating surface of squares. CNC milled out of walnut. 12" square. Programmed in Grasshopper/Rhino.

Rotating squares. CNC milled out of bamboo. 24" square. Programmed in Grasshopper/Rhino.

Just a beautiful pattern. CNC milled out of Padduck. 12" square. Programmed in Grasshopper/Rhino.

Here is a short video showing the making of one of these patterns on my CNC milling machine. The rough pass is run first - and the fine pass - in this video - runs next.
A stepped beautiful geometric pattern. CNC milled out of particleboard (left) and out of a two color laminated plywood (right). 12" square and 9" x 11". Programmed in Grasshopper/Rhino.


A serving board for my wife. CNC milled out of walnut. Programmed in Vectric Pro.

I programmed two intersecting waves in Grasshopper. Then imported the file to my CNC (computer controlled) milling machine which then spent 15 hours carving away the wood from a sheet of plywood to reveal the wave pattern. The plywood is a perfect wood for this as it ends up looking like a topographical map. The wood used is a very special and expensive plywood with alternating blue and black layers. 10 "x 20"

The 13 second video to the right shows the CNC milling machine making the final smooth finish path after the rough path was complete.