The Dragon Scale Bowl
Well, my blog falls a bit behind, but a month ago I made this new bowl, which I call the “Dragon Scale Bowl”.
Initially this idea started out as an exploration of “scales” using Rhino and pattern repetition. I wanted to create a “dragon egg”, but I realized it would be difficult to machine on a typical 3-axis CNC. I really need to get a 4th axis; a rotary axis that can spin it as I cut the shapes out. An egg shape would only be half he project; the ideal project would be a box. Until I get a 4th axis, my designs are limited by what the Z-axis can do. I decided to create a bowl shape that would be more attune to a 3-axis machine, and that meant a flat and stout bowl.
But what really inspired this? My friend Nick got married a while back, and I couldn’t attend the wedding for various reasons, but I still wanted to send them a gift. I know Nick likes fantasy and comic style stuff, so I figured something dragon-like might be something he would like, and I set about designing this bowl.
Rhino is a great program for generating more organic type shapes in CAD. I still like Fusion 360 for more rigid designs, where I need to tweak parameters and have things dynamically update. I feel like Fusion is more true CAD; you define some 2D sketches and pull up shapes from those. You can easily change the sketches and influence the whole design without having to re-create anything (assuming you did things “right”).. Rhino is more set and it is hard to change once you start designing something. Yeah, you can “record history”, but it is easy to get lost, and once you get a bit deep in the program it is difficult to go back to and manipulate base shapes. So, you design a base shape and can later manipulate it, but creating it based on specific parameters is more difficult. The big difference is that Rhino has Grasshopper, which is true parametric design, but requires a *lot* more work, as you are basically programming the shapes you see. But this project itself was done in just normal Rhino; no Grasshopper, no parameterization and just creation and manipulation.
I did make the digital files available as a download; $10 on my website: Dragon Scale Bowl Digital Files STL – but I only include the STL file and my Fusion file with the CAM setup (toolpaths). I generally do this for a lot of the things I make, as I want to make my art “accessible” in some form. I didn’t include the original Rhino design file as I wanted to retain some control over the design. So far, I’ve had the digital file available for about a month, but I’ve had zero purchases of it. In the future I may not post the files for sale; it is just more effort than it is worth.
I ended up making four of these bowls. I really like the shape, and the texture is really amazing, and it was fun to make. I kind of like the scales pointing up more than I do pointing down, and I might experiment with a design that has them pointing up (ie: upside down shape of this bowl). One bowl went to Nick, and I plan on keeping one for myself. The other two are for sale; one is cherry and the other is walnut. Part of me doesn’t really want to sell them, but it would be a nice way to fund future projects. https://www.corbinsworkshop.com/shop/dragon-scale-bowl/ I’m also okay with not selling any; I hope to do a craft fair in Truckee next spring and have a few of these things to actually have available.
