Making relief-cut wine labels

This shot shows wine labels from the mid 1990s and the equipment used to make them. They are printed onto either gummed or self-adhesive labels from inked printing blocks. The blocks are rubber, mostly erasers, although the large block here (with "Apple" on it) was a rubber fender block from a van or truck.
 

Single-block printing

This block has been used twice. Originally it had the words reserve and the date (1997) on it. These were removed when it was used in a following year.


These labels were produced from it (not the Elder reserve 96, that was produced by photocopying an original drawing and then hand-colouring it.)

You can see the two variations - with and without the side text.

Multi-block printing

These labels are proofs to check alignment. The green apple" block was printed first, and the black smaller areas printed with a number of smaller blocks. The patterns are either oak leaves, elderflowers, the year (1995) or "Dry".

This is the main printing block. It's about 10cm by 8cm



Here it is alongside labels printed on the first level only using it...

 
...and here are the individual small blocks used to over-print the details. These are between about 10mm long by 8mm wide.

Prototype metal maggot

In the shed with a tin can maggot

Hinged metal maggots

Hinged metal maggots
Originally uploaded by rosemarybeetle

Made with Paper

This is a small scale version of an animatronic maggot, based on a human sized one I saw at a festival in Arnhem once. That freaked and groaned impressively as it ground round, powered by a washing machine motor

Making an Arduino power supply cable look wooden

With nice wooden plugs an ugly black plastic lead is not really what anyone wants!

The black lead on the left was revamped into the lead on the right by sawdust coating it using latex as a flexible bonding agent.

Latex and sawdust forms a composite material which is much physically robust than either on their own. The latex provides flexibility and the dust gives bulk and resilience.



Liquid latex from an art supply shop was used, without any thickener adding. It uses ammonia as a suspension fluid which does smell rather strongly. Use in a ventilated space!








Latex was poured into a shallow container










Sawdust was sifted to get a fine powder.










The sawdust was dusted over the wet latex.










This was left to dry, then the process was repeated.













Eventually after three coats it ended up looking rather tasty and root-like!













A close-up of the joint with the mains plug.










Here is the head complete with swanky new cable.

Adding wooden plugs to the power unit

The casing for the power supply to the wooden head has cracked. This was pulled apart completely on the crack, and glued back at the same time as gluing the casing onto the power unit transformer.









Here it is being held temporarily in the vice, while a cramp is attached.










A conical casing for the %v end of the power lead had been turned, which had also cracked. This turned out to be helpful, as it was the easiest way to fit the plug










A pair of locking grips was used as a cramp to hold it while the glue set.

















Once glued and cramped, they were let to dry









Here is the finished mains end of the plug (face side)











Here is the business end of the finished mains end of the plug.

The transformer is held in place firmly using hot glue










And finally the finished end of the 5v plug

Creating a new oak casing for the new power unit

The head finally has a working wooden power plug.  The first power unit was burned out by soldering a new lead on before it even got the oak round it!

The second stopped working after it was encased in oak. It was not obviously damaged externally. It is likely it was broken inside by vibrations from the sander, as the plug was in situ, when it was subjected to some serious RPM.






See below for the steps undertaken to create this...


A new casing in the vice, being routed out to fit the plug.

Note the guide rail cramped to the bench. This is a guide for the handheld router to keep to a reasonably straight edge







A close-up of the inside of the casing, partly routed.










Fitting the plug to test the depth










The casing with routing completed, prior to finishing.










Checking the plug fits with both halves of the casing in place.

As the last unit was killed by vibrations, this one was to be finished without the unit in it though







To do this, the two halves of the casing needed to be sanded whilst kept aligned. The plug had done this in the previous attempt, but was not in place in this version.

Tow screws were inserted in one half of the casing to create guide pins to keep the halves aligned whilst sanding.








The guide pin after the screw head has been removed. This is to fit into a hole in the other half of the casing. (there are two of these)













To mark the other half of the casing, the two halves were aligned, then pressure applied in the vice.













This created an indentation, to mark where the alignment hole needed to be drilled.












The completed halves.










The completed casing, ready to be finished

The orbital sander responsible for destroying the last unit with vibrations.











The finished casing after planing and sanding. Unfortunately it cracked when the router bit in a bit too strongly. This cracked was later glued back together

New power supply

Having screwed up three power supplies so far, here is the new one...



Here's the previous plug, with delightful casing, but defunct supply!



I believe this time it was the vibration from the sander breaking the innards of the supply :(

Making a wooden power plug

Having finished the head, it seemed poor to use a plastic plug. What better than a wooden plug?

Initially I started trying to take apart the plastic casing of the transformer, which looked like this. Unfortunately, the supply failed, which I believe to be due to fusin printed circuit connections with solder while trying to solder a new lead onto the circuit board. FAIL!

Having destroyed one supply, another was found in the shed. This was fitted up with an oak casing

This was made from two short pieces of oak plank, with a cavity taken out with an electric router



The two halves together look like this


These are not flush.  To do so they needed to be sanded together as one piece. This would only work once glued together. Here theyare in the vice with cramps attached (one traditional iron screw cramp, and one metal/plastic ratchet cramp)

Head is finally finished...

Finally the head is just about ready...

I amused myself looking up the original drawing....


Here's what's inside the face...

...and the arduino control circuit under the base...

All that really remains is to make the power supply...