Manufacturing, signage and AI through an engineer's eyes.

News and practice from the shop floor: CNC, laser, wide-format print, materials, machines and trade shows.

Manufacturing

Workshop · 7 September 2026

Nesting: six rules that actually cut sheet waste

A practical guide to sheet layout for CNC, laser and plotter work: what to settle before nesting, how to think about offcuts, and why the most expensive mistake happens before the file reaches the shop floor, not during cutting.

3 min readRead more

3D letters, pylons, fascias, LED and standards. Trends in visual branding and projects worth learning from.

Signage

Case study · 1 September 2026

Farizon branded goalpost: an 8 m span and a beam that must not read as bowed

Case study of an eight-metre display gate for Farizon: reconciling a clean silhouette with asymmetric supports, a heavier left leg and lighting that has to work by day and by night.

3 min readRead more

Python, workshop scripts, self-hosting and AI agents behind the scenes. How a small studio automates the work nobody enjoys.

Automation

Workshop · 5 September 2026

A product video without a camera: Playwright and ffmpeg as the recording studio

How we recorded the AxisMod configurator walkthrough with no camera, microphone or editor: a Playwright script clicks through, injects callouts and a fake cursor, and ffmpeg trims and compresses the result to 2.6 MB.

3 min readRead more

Build log of AxisMod, the modular production platform: decisions, generative engine, configurators, production files.

AxisMod

Dev log · 3 September 2026

Fascia panel breakdown that never cuts through a letter

How AxisMod splits a long fascia into sheets so that no joint lands on a letter, and why this one shop-floor rule had to become a rule inside the configurator.

4 min readRead more