Lego Technic Ruler and Sorting Tool

Made on a Glowforge
#1

Recently bought a lot of Lego Technic sets and decided that it would be nice to have a tool I could use to make sorting Technic beams and axles easier.

I stumbled upon Tom Alphin’s printable ruler a while ago and I thought it’d be a neat idea to use the Glowforge to engrave that design into some material so that I could actually fit the pieces into something physically instead of just overlaying it on some paper.

First attempt I botched pretty hard as I forgot to make sure the design was set to the correct scale in the GFUI. Second attempt I fixed the scaling issues and tweaked the design to make it take up significantly less space / use less material. Went with some leftover Proofgrade Clear Acrylic and it turned out amazing.

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Tom’s design here: http://tomalphin.com/2014/02/lego-ruler-and-sorting-tool.html

13 Likes
#2

Hmm scale was off in the UI? What software do you use to design?

#3

I typically use inkscape but I did not have my document dimensions set correctly, so when saving as an SVG and importing into GFUI it didn’t load at the correct scale. After tweaking a bunch of things and ensuring the document was saved correctly everything was 100% accurate.

#4

Welcome to Technic. You’ll soon be able to scan them all by eye. :slight_smile:

#5

This is AWESOME. As the owner of MANY Technique sets, this will be a lifesaver / God send to have when constructing. I agree with quixotequest in that you’ll be able to (usually) scan them by eye, but more often than not, I end up checking with the front of the book. Not any more!

1 Like
#6

Yeah I have a ton of kits, I usually have problems determining the 13s from the 15s as well as a few of the axle lengths

2 Likes
#7

Very cool! I think acrylic templates and rulers is one of the most useful things you can make.