teapot trivet | helloartsy.com
Teapot Trivet • 4″x4″x1/8″ • Aluminum

I don't drinkable as well much tea but I sure like making things.

The Problem

My glass teapot came with this little metal band for keeping the teapot off the burner surface of the stove.  I come to find out that this metal ring was called a trivet and that the one that came with my teapot was fit for the trash.  It was either atomic number 26 or steel, either way it didn't take long for it to became a rusty centre sore that only left rust everywhere on a daily basis.

Those of you who follow my work know that I have an equal amount of admiration for technology as I exercise traditional painting methods and am no stranger to electronics and computer based projects.

The Design Process

sketch | helloartsy.com
The teapot trivet sketch

I started past drawing a  four inch octagon on a piece of graph newspaper and mitt drawing a bird and flower pattern so that information technology fit into the octagon.  I kept in mind the structural integrity of the teapot trivet and made sure I was linking upward all of the components in plenty means.  Adjacent I photographed the cartoon and recreated the drawing as a vector based design in Adobe Illustrator.  I didn't utilize live trace though, I actually recreated the design from scratch while using the cartoon as a template from which I worked on peak of.  I fabricated a few pocket-size changes like using a circle for the outer part of the design.

Manufacturing: Where Design Meets Car

aluminum cnc trivet | helloartsy.com
CNC router cutting teapot trivet

Once the vector blueprint was complete I handed the file over to my buddy Rich who had but completed rebuilding a CNC router.  After converting my vector file of the trivet into a format that the CNC router could understand (1000-Code) he positioned an aluminum sail onto the router'due south bed and let the machine cut out my trivet.  He was nice enough to vitrify off and abrupt edges too, what a guy!

Past the way, I choose a bird and flower considering my wife actually likes birds and flowers; I do likewise so this trivet has become a huge hitting in our household.  I'm not sure how the aluminum volition concord up over fourth dimension, just anything is amend than that rusty one-time trivet that was staining our kitchen.