{"id":8202,"date":"2024-11-22T07:21:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-22T15:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/?p=8202"},"modified":"2024-11-22T07:21:55","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T15:21:55","slug":"the-articulating-wood-snakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/the-articulating-wood-snakes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Articulating Wood Snakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"top\" \/>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4gjCOKrucIA?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Video Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4gjCOKrucIA\">https:\/\/youtu.be\/4gjCOKrucIA<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My son&#8217;s 6th birthday was coming up, and it seems to be a modern kid&#8217;s party tradition for all the attendees to get a gift bag or something. I&#8217;ve previously 3d printed up stuff to give to kids, which is easy to do, but has the one drawback of being plastic. Plastic plastic plastic&#8230;especially <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/10\/01\/health\/flame-retardant-black-plastic-wellness\/index.html\">black plastic<\/a>. Sure, PLA is &#8220;recyclable&#8221; (will that really happen?) and made from food starches (corn, etc), so it isn&#8217;t too bad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before I get too deep, you can download the digital files and plans for this project here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.corbinsworkshop.com\/shop\/digital-files-articulating-wood-snake-fusion-360-stl-models\/\">Articulating Wood Snake Digital Files<\/a>. The files and a complete set of directions are free! I was initially going to charge $5 for them, but vastly underestimated people&#8217;s desire to make this project. I&#8217;ve had one free download of it so far.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"684\" src=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-1024x684.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8204\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-2048x1368.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-380x254.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-1320x882.jpg 1320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ansel&#8217;s Wood Snake: Cherry &amp; Walnut that he customized<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>So, I set out to design a toy for the kids that wasn&#8217;t plastic. The goals:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Wood<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Moves<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Animal<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I was heavily inspired by the 3d printed toys that are designed with joints to be &#8220;print in place&#8221;. These articulating little things are really amazing feats of design. Now, the joint design is based on how a 3d printer works, layer by layer where it is hard to do overhanging parts. For a wood toy, I figured I could go to a ball and socket design.  Initially I was seeing out some metal or pre-made ball and sockets, but I couldn&#8217;t find anything that would meet my design needs, so I figured I could make them out of wood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I began by doing some CAD work in Fusion 360 to work out tolerances and movements for a wood joint. My idea was simple: cut two halves and glue them together, where one joint would encapsulate the the ball of another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/snake-joint.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"647\" src=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/snake-joint-1024x647.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8206\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/snake-joint-1024x647.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/snake-joint-300x189.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/snake-joint-768x485.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/snake-joint-380x240.jpeg 380w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/snake-joint-1320x834.jpeg 1320w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/snake-joint.jpeg 1428w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I didn&#8217;t take any pictures, but the first test was just a few joints and allowed 360 degrees of rotation. I felt like the complete rotation wasn&#8217;t quite &#8220;snake like&#8221;, so I sought after a way to limit the motion. I settled on making the ball slightly oblong, like a squished sphere or ellipse rotated about the  z-axis. I also worked on the shape of the body, making it somewhat flat on the bottom and slightly round on the top. More like how a snake might look laying on the ground with gravity pulling it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/joint-cross-section.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"739\" src=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/joint-cross-section-1024x739.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8207\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/joint-cross-section-1024x739.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/joint-cross-section-300x217.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/joint-cross-section-768x554.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/joint-cross-section-380x274.jpeg 380w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/joint-cross-section.jpeg 1114w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> The squished sphere did a good job of limiting the movement, and works almost too well. The wood joints are incredibly strong when made out of a hardwood, but you can except a lot of twisting force and eventually twist the joint to failure, snapping at the shaft.  This wasn&#8217;t possible when you could rotate the joint 360; there was no pressure points. You also can&#8217;t pull the joint out; the wood is super strong lengthwise with the grain.  I ended up doing a few tests to get the spacing right before I started production of the snakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The snake head is a mesh re-mix from the original 3D printed snake. I took the STL and imported it into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rhino3d.com\">Rhino<\/a> for manipulation. I also exported the ball-and-shaft from my Fusion CAD Design so I could bring it into Rhino. I then combined the shapes into one, but the head was a little blocky. I then exported that shape as an STL from Rhino and opened it into <a href=\"https:\/\/www.blender.org\">Blender<\/a>. In Blender I could use the sculpting tools to soften out the mesh. So yeah, three separate programs to do this. Fusion is terrible (and slow) at mesh manipulations, so I couldn&#8217;t do it there. Blender is terrible and mesh booleans, whereas Rhino is a lot better. But Rhino doesn&#8217;t do sculpting, so I had to use Blender to do that! Finally, Fusion is the only place to do the CAM (I&#8217;ll ignore Vectric VCarve\/Aspire because I don&#8217;t like it&#8217;s toolpath generation).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"684\" src=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-1024x684.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8205\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-2048x1368.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-380x254.jpg 380w, https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01739-1320x882.jpg 1320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For wood, any hardwood would work well, and I used scraps of cherry and walnut that I had around. I also had a lot of redwood, so I made three out of redwood. This was a mistake, as redwood is just too soft, and the joints quickly failed on one of them. The hardwood joints that Ansel has is still holding up after a month of play, but he also realizes that they can break if he twists them and avoids doing that. Since they are a kid&#8217;s toy, I finished them with &#8220;Walrus Oil&#8221; (brand) Cutting Board Oil, which is a mixture of various food safe oils and bees wax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I ended up making seven of these snakes. From concept to getting them all done took about a full week off work. I was constantly running the CNC machine to cut all the pieces to get them done in time for his party. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Video Link: https:\/\/youtu.be\/4gjCOKrucIA My son&#8217;s 6th birthday was coming up, and it seems to be a modern kid&#8217;s party tradition for all the attendees to get a gift bag or something. I&#8217;ve previously 3d printed&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/the-articulating-wood-snakes\/\">[read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8204,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[210,73],"class_list":["post-8202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-woodworking","tag-cnc","tag-woodworking"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wood-Toy-Snake-CNC-DSC01742-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8208,"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202\/revisions\/8208"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.corbinstreehouse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}