Godar Blot Skull Pins

    Andrew Crawford October 3, 2024

    I didn’t post the wood inlay Mastodon logo pins I made a couple years ago but, they came out so well that I periodically think of other things that would make good pin designs. In the spirit of the season and, since I rarely get around to the “spooky season” projects I envision these days, I made some skull pins inspired by my old Godar Blot design.

    There are two variants: one where white oak is dominant, with walnut for the eyes and nose and, padauk for the spiral on the forehead and, another where walnut is dominant with white oak for the eye and nose and, padauk for the spiral.

    I was making these for friends and family but, I ended up making a few extras. They are up in the shop, if you want one (light or dark).

    Godar Blot skull pins – hardwood inlay skull pins from white oak, walnut and, padauk. The white oak is dominant on one pin and the walnut is dominant on the other.
    Handmade wood inlay white oak, walnut and, padauk hardwood skull pins with some Celtic style.
    Godar Blot skull pin – white oak skull with inlaid walnut eyes and nose with a padauk spiral on the forehead.
    Handmade wood inlay white oak, walnut and, padauk hardwood skull pin with some Celtic style.
    Godar Blot skull pin – walnut skull with inlaid white oak eyes and nose with a padauk spiral on the forehead.
    Handmade wood inlay white oak, walnut and, padauk hardwood skull pin with some Celtic style.
    Godar Blot skull pins – hardwood inlay skull pins from white oak, walnut and, padauk. The white oak is dominant on one pin and the walnut is dominant on the other. A bottle cap slightly smaller than the pins is provided for scale.
    Handmade wood inlay white oak, walnut and, padauk hardwood skull pins with some Celtic style. Bottle cap for scale.
    Godar Blot skull pins – hardwood inlay skull pins from white oak, walnut and, padauk. The white oak is dominant on one pin and the walnut is dominant on the other. A bottle cap slightly smaller than the pins is provided for scale and, the light pin is held between an index finger and thumb.
    Handmade wood inlay white oak, walnut and, padauk hardwood skull pins with some Celtic style. Bottle cap and fingers for scale.

    Two minute making-of video:

    ESP32 Ad Blocker with Case

    Andrew Crawford September 26, 2024

    I made a DNS proxying ad blocker using ESP32-S2 with a custom laser-cut acrylic case. This is based on projects by “rubfi” and John Park, who are entirely responsible for the code.

    The case is inspired by one from dsacademy that I modified for my networked USB flash drive. I designed this case from scratch to fit the Adafruit ESP32-S2 TFT Feather boards, which have a nice little integrated color display panel. I laser cut the pieces from 3mm and 6mm thick clear acrylic. I made some little EVA foam feet to cover the screw ends to avoid scratching up surfaces. The case assembles with four 20mm M2 screws with washers and nuts.1

    Below is the design file for the case if you want it for personal use. If you want to do anything else with it (e.g., sell finished cases or incorporate it in your commercial project), please contact me for permission first.

    ESP32-S2 TFT Feather running ESPHole in a custom laser-cut acrylic case.
    ESP32-S2 TFT Feather running ESPHole in a custom laser-cut acrylic case.
    ESP32-S2 TFT Feather running ESPHole in a custom laser-cut acrylic case (bottom).
    ESP32-S2 TFT Feather running ESPHole in a custom laser-cut acrylic case (bottom).
    ESP32-S2 TFT Feather running ESPHole in a custom laser-cut acrylic case (3/4 front view).
    ESP32-S2 TFT Feather running ESPHole in a custom laser-cut acrylic case.
    ESP32-S2 TFT Feather running ESPHole in a custom laser-cut acrylic case.
    ESP32-S2 TFT Feather running ESPHole in a custom laser-cut acrylic case.

    Short assembly video:

    This file is for personal, non-commercial use only.  Note that, by referencing this, you are agreeing to release any variations you create under identical terms.

    Attribution-Creative Commons NonCommercial-ShareAlikeESP32-S2 TFT Feather Case (SVG)

    1 Amazon Associates link benefits a local arts organization.

    Reputation Tracker

    Andrew Crawford September 14, 2024

    Kira of Cryptid Dicecraft asked me to make a “reputation tracker” for their Victorian era fae-themed table top role playing game (TTRPG). I made a few changes and expanded on their rough design to make this.

    Overall, it is 10cm square and about 3.2cm tall and, made of walnut hardwood. After a fair amount of sanding, I finished it with a few layers of wipe-on polyurethane, lightly sanded between layers.

    The bottom is a box to contain the cribbage pegs used for tracking and, connects to the top with magnets.

    The engrave on the face is filled using silver acrylic paint. I glued a piece of nice black card stock to the back of the top piece. I lined the lower box and put a gasket between the parts with cork.

    I took some photos on my tarnished silver tea service and, made a short making-of video.

    Reputation tracker open with pegs in some of the holes.
    Reputation Tracker
    Reputation tracker - a wooden box with a list of names on the face, each with a row of holes that accept cribbage pegs.
    Reputation Tracker
    Back side of the reputation tracker showing the Evermore ambigram engraved in the center.
    Back side of the reputation tracker showing the Evermore ambigram engraved in the center.
    Reputation Tracker open with pegs.
    Reputation Tracker open with pegs.
    The Reputation Tracker open and empty.
    Reputation Tracker (open)
    The inside surfaces of the Reputation Tracker - the top backed with a matte black cardstock and the bottom lined with cork.
    The insides of the reputation tracker.
    Reputation tracker sanded but, not finished.
    Reputation tracker sanded but, not finished.

    XOXO Rubber Stamp

    Andrew Crawford August 22, 2024
    A small notebook lying clipped open stamped with XOXO in rainbow colors. The stamp sits next to the impression. A multi-colored stamp pad and a purple pencil are visible around it.

    XOXO is happening one more time in Portland (OR) right now! I couldn’t be there this year but, I made some rubber XOXO stamps and, sent them off to people who will be there. They are using them to encourage community and interaction. If you are there and have something you want stamped, look and ask around in person or in slack.

    I made a short of assembling the stamps. I may do a video on rubber stamp design and file prep, if there is interest.

    Update: I collected some photos of the stamps and impressions from the stamps in the wild (mainly at the festival).  Thank you so much to everyone for sharing your photos!

    If you have any photos that include (intentionally or incidentally) the XOXO stamps or impressions from them that are not here already, please contact me to get them added.

    XOXO stamps, face-up, with flower-shaped rainbow stamp pad and spray bottle on a round table with a grey tablecloth in the park
    Photo by Jeremy Salmon
    Stamped button, blue on white with the date 24 AUG 2024 stamped below, sitting on top of an XOXO festival pass and lanyard adorned with assorted pins.
    Stamped XOXO button. Photo by Booky Margoof.
    XOXO stamp, rainbow stamp pad, spray bottle, paper towels and, 2024 edition XOXO Field Notes on a picnic table.
    XOXO stamp, rainbow stamp pad, spray bottle, paper towels and, 2024 edition XOXO Field Notes on a picnic table. Photo by Simon S Sotelo.
    XOXO stamps with impressions in a small grid-ruled notebook on a granite surface with a rainbow flower stamp pad and fingers with intricately-patterned nails.
    XOXO stamps with impressions in a small grid-ruled notebook on a granite surface with a rainbow flower stamp pad. Photo by Simon S Sotelo.
    Members of the #stationery group wrote and decorated notes at XOXO to send to community members that could not be there.
    Members of the group wrote and decorated notes at XOXO to send to community members that could not be there. Photo by Lorien Williams.
    Artistic shot of an XOXO stamp sitting on a wrinkled paper towel stained with ink. Another stamp is visible out-of-focus in the background.
    XOXO stamps between impressions. Photo by Brad Barrish.
    XOXO stamps with rainbow flower stamp pad on picnic table B12 with a They/Them pronoun pin.
    XOXO stamps with rainbow flower stamp pad on picnic table B12 with a They/Them pronoun pin. Photo by Simon S Sotelo.
    Portrait featuring a Flo Mask whose filter has been stamped with the XOXO stamp in blue
    Photo by Molly McLeod
    3/4 shot wearing a Flo Mask that has been stamped with XOXO
    Photo by Molly McLeod.
    Sketches of the Andys in a small sketchbook becing stamped with the XOXO stamp
    Sketch of the Andys being stamped. Photo by Molly McLeod.
    Sketches of the Andys with XOXO stamped in red next to them
    Stamped sketch of the Andys. Photo by Molly McLeod.
    KN95 masks in blue and two shades of green, stamped with XOXO
    Photo by Molly McLeod
    Wolf Nails pen sketch with XOXO stamps
    Photo and art by Susan Lin
    Book of XOXO festival paper ephemera bound into a small book with Erin McFadden's badge as the covers.
    Photo by Erin McFadden.
    Book of XOXO festival paper ephemera bound into a small book with Erin McFadden's badge as the covers.
    Photo by Erin McFadden.
    Joe Crawford's XOXO badge with pins and stickers on a stamped piece of paper
    XOXO badge, pins and stamp impressions. Photo by Joe Crawford
    Two columns of multi-color impressions from the XOXO stamps fill a page in a small grid notebook
    Impressions from all of the XOXO stamps made on one page.
    An envelope Addressed to Andrew Crawford (rest of the address and return address redacted), decorated with stickers and stamps. A card behind reads hi, XOXO friend!
    The lovely folks in the XOXO group sent me one of their fun decorated letters (front).
    The back of an envelope with XOXO stamped in multiple colors on the flap, decorated with stickers. The corner of a card sticks out from the bottom with a stylized mountain and some pine trees.
    The lovely folks in the XOXO group sent me one of their fun decorated letters (reverse).
    A section of a cork board covered with paper ephemera, pins, buttons, stickers, postcards, small handmade items too numerous to enumerate.
    My letter from XOXO has joined the inspirational chaos of the cork board in the studio!

    Glow Engrave Deck Boxes

    Andrew Crawford August 10, 2024

    At the end of 2022, I made some tabbed deck boxes with glow-filled engraves. The originals were holiday gifts for the nieblings with their initials on the fronts. Those held a normal, unsleeved Magic: the Gathering deck.

    Later, by request, I made a larger one that holds a sleeved “commander” deck. This one has a rune I used to use as a personal identifier on the front, as well as one of my Celtic key pattern panels on the side.

    These are all made from hardwood ply (maple, cherry and, walnut). That makes the finger joints pretty pronounced.

    Standard size deck boxes for M:tG and similar games. There is a Celtic key pattern panel engraved on the left sides and initials on the fronts (C, M and, B). These boxes are made from (left to right) walnut, maple and, cherry plywood.
    Standard size deck boxes for M:tG and similar games. There is a Celtic key pattern panel engraved on the left sides and initials on the fronts (C, M and, B). These boxes are made from (left to right) walnut, maple and, cherry plywood.
    Standard size deck boxes for M:tG and similar games. There is a Celtic key pattern panel engraved on the left sides and initials on the fronts (C, M and, B). These boxes are made from (left to right) walnut, maple and, cherry plywood.
    Standard size deck boxes for M:tG and similar games. There is a Celtic key pattern panel engraved on the left sides and initials on the fronts (C, M and, B). These boxes are made from (left to right) walnut, maple and, cherry plywood.
    Wood sleeved "commander" deck box for M:tG and similar games with glowing engraved designs: an embellished Futhark rune on the front and, a Celtic key pattern panel on the left side. Lid removed, showing a sleeved deck inside.
    Wood sleeved “commander” deck box for M:tG and similar games with glowing engraved designs: an embellished Futhark rune on the front and, a Celtic key pattern panel on the left side. Lid removed, showing a sleeved deck inside.
    Wood sleeved "commander" deck box for M:tG and similar games with glowing engraved designs: an embellished Futhark rune on the front and, a Celtic key pattern panel on the left side. View of the bottom, showing the Evermore ambigram engrave.
    Wood sleeved “commander” deck box for M:tG and similar games with glowing engraved designs: an embellished Futhark rune on the front and, a Celtic key pattern panel on the left side. View of the bottom, showing the Evermore ambigram engrave.
    Wood sleeved "commander" deck box for M:tG and similar games with glowing engraved designs: an embellished Futhark rune on the front and, a Celtic key pattern panel on the left side. Seen here in low light with the engraves glowing.
    Wood sleeved “commander” deck box for M:tG and similar games with glowing engraved designs: an embellished Futhark rune on the front and, a Celtic key pattern panel on the left side.
    Wood sleeved "commander" deck box for M:tG and similar games with glowing engraved designs: an embellished Futhark rune on the front and, a Celtic key pattern panel on the left side.
    Wood sleeved “commander” deck box for M:tG and similar games with glowing engraved designs: an embellished Futhark rune on the front and, a Celtic key pattern panel on the left side.
    Standard size deck boxes for M:tG and similar games with glowing engravings. There is a Celtic key pattern panel on the left sides and initials on the fronts (M and B). The left box has the lid removed, showing a deck inside.
    Standard size deck boxes for M:tG and similar games with glowing engravings. There is a Celtic key pattern panel on the left sides and initials on the fronts (M and B). The left box has the lid removed, showing a deck inside.

    Networked USB Flash Drive

    Andrew Crawford August 2, 2024
    Networked USB drive built with a Raspberry Pi Zero in a laser-cut clear acrylic case.

    I do much of my 3D modeling on an iPad or a desktop computer. The resin printer is in a closed-off room (with external ventilation) on the other side of the house from anywhere I would be preparing 3D print jobs.

    At some point a few years ago, I thought it would be cool to be able to to send files to the printer across the network. I thought about how to do that and, grabbed a Raspberry Pi Zero W and a few assorted parts and … left them sitting on my workbench.

    Recently, I noticed the parts were still sitting there and, again concluded it would be nice to be able to send files to the printer from my desktop machine without doing a sneakernet transfer with a USB flash drive. One evening recently, I decided to put it together.

    In the interest of making it less fragile, I decided it needed a case. As a prelude to designing one, I went looking to see if anyone else had designed one. This case from dsacademy looked like it might work and, with a few small modifications, it did (mostly adjusting for different acrylic thicknesses – see my notes about it on Thingiverse).

    I have been using this on my Anycubic Photon M3 for a couple weeks now and, it has been working great.  No issues to report.

    I took notes on getting it all set up and configured. They are a little rough for a tutorial but, since a few people expressed interest, I thought I should post them.

    Networked USB drive built with a Raspberry Pi Zero in a laser-cut clear acrylic case.

    Setup Notes

    Get the Raspberry Pi Imager.

    Run it and, follow the directions to install to your micro SD card. It will save a lot of effort later to get things like the wifi, username and password and, hostname set up in the installer. So, take your time and do that.

    Remove and re-connect the micro SD card. A new drive named “boot” should appear.

    Make an empty file named “ssh” in the root of the boot drive/partition.

    Edit config.txt with a text editor and, add this line to the bottom of the file:

    dtoverlay=dwc2

    Edit cmdline.txt. Add this to the very end of the first line (being careful not a create an additional line):

    modules-load=dwc2

    Eject the micro SD card, remove it and, put it into the Pi Zero W. Plug inner-most USB port on the Pi Zero W into your computer (the outer port is power-only). It will take a few moments to start up.

    You should be able to SSH in to the Pi Zero W now. You can likely use the web console of your network router to find the local IP address assigned by DHCP.

    I prefer vim to nano. So, I install that:

    sudo apt-get install vim

    Remove stuff you won’t need:

    sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice* -y
    sudo apt-get purge wolfram-engine -y
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove -y

    Double-check that /boot/firmware/config.txt contains the line:

    dtoverlay=dwc2

    Edit /etc/modules and add a line to the bottom of the file with:

    dwc2

    Create a container for the data storage portion:

    sudo dd bs=1M if=/dev/zero of=/piusb.bin count=2048

    Adjust the “count” number to reflect the size of the drive you want. Do not fill the entire micro SD card but, you can use most of the unused space. Maybe leave a GB or so. This may take awhile to finish.  I used a 118G micro SD card and made a 100G pre-allocated storage file.  That took a few hours to format.

    Format the container with a FAT32 file system:

    sudo mkdosfs /piusb.bin -F 32 -I

    Make a mount point:

    sudo mkdir /mnt/usb_share

    Edit /etc/fstab and, add the mount command:

    /piusb.bin /mnt/usb_share vfat users,umask=000 0 2

    Mount the container:

    sudo mount -a

    Edit /etc/rc.ocal and add these lines before the line that says “exit 0”:

    /bin/sleep 5
    /sbin/modprobe g_multi file=/piusb.bin stall=0 removable=1
    sudo mount -o ro /piusb.bin /mnt/usb_share

    Reboot.

    Install Samba:

    sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install samba winbind -y

    Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and add this to the bottom:

    [usb]
    comment = Whatever You Like Here
    browseable = yes
    path = /mnt/usb_share
    read only = no
    create mask = 777

    Set a Samba password for your account:

    sudo smbpasswd -a YourUserName

    Restart Samba:

    sudo systemctl restart smbd.service

    Automate USB device reconnect in order to have it update when you transfer new files via the network:

    sudo apt-get install python3-watchdog

    Install this python script from a random stranger on the Internet:

    cd /usr/local/share
    sudo wget http://rpf.io/usbzw -O usb_share.py
sudo chmod +x usb_share.py

    Turn this into a background service. Edit (create) /etc/systemd/system/usbshare.service and, put this in it:

    [Unit]
Description=USB Share Watchdog

    [Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/local/share/usb_share.py
Restart=always

    [Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

    Then make it go:

    sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable usbshare.service
sudo systemctl start usbshare.service

    lf you run this by applying power (e.g., with an adapter) to the outer USB connection on the PI Zero W, it won’t shut off if the device it is plugged into as a USB drive is shut off or, if the Pi Zero W is unplugged. You probably need to make sure it doesn’t get power through both USB ports, though. There are a number of ways to accomplish this:

    • You can put a little piece of electrical tape over the positive (+) power pin of the USB A connector for the cable you are using.
    • You can modify a cable by stripping the insulation and cutting the red wire, then repairing the insulation.
    • You can use a filter device like this thing (Amazon link).

    This is a tiny little computer. It doesn’t like unceremoniously losing power. So, if you are going to disconnect it so that it doesn’t have power anymore, you should ssh into it and issue a “sudo halt” first. Then, give it a few moments to gracefully shut down.

    To make it easy to get to this on my network, I used my router’s DHCP info to find the MAC address of the Pi Zero W, then configured DHCP to consistently assign the same IP address to it. I also set up an alias in my router’s DNS forwarder for the hostname. So, I can now use the hostname for ssh or mounting the share over the network.