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CAD & Woodworking Studies

A run of Fusion 360, laser-cut and hand-finished builds from a design studio — a client-briefed makeup & jewelry organizer, a parametric pencil box, a 360°-swivel phone stand, an articulating LED lamp, and a wavy-fronted marquetry drawer box.

May 4, 2023
  • Fusion 360
  • CAD
  • Laser Cutting
  • 3D Printing
  • Pyrography
  • Woodworking

A series of design-and-make studies from Lawrenceville’s design studio — each one a loop of concept sketch → Fusion 360 model → laser-cut, 3D-printed or hand-finished fabrication → finishing. Some are precise laser work; others lean on pyrography, hand-painting and veneer.

Makeup & Jewelry Organizer

My most involved studio build, and a client-briefed one: I interviewed my client, wrote a problem-solving brief, and iterated from a cardboard low-res mock-up before committing to wood. The whole thing had to disappear back into her existing dresser drawer, so every compartment is sized to that footprint.

The finished organizer is a small piece of clever packaging: stepped, tiered compartments that let you see everything at once, two hand-painted panels (a sunflower and a hibiscus) that slide in as the top cover, 3D-printed dividers I modeled to sort jewelry, a flip-up lidded compartment, and a tiny secret drawer with a scalloped finger-pull. The whole body is wrapped in a pyrography meadow — hand-burned wildflowers, bees and butterflies.

The organizer in daily use on a dresser: brushes, palettes, serums, nail polish, jewelry and hair tools each with a home in the stepped compartments.

The hand-painted sunflower panel set in as the sliding lid over the top tray, with the pyrography meadow wrapping the body below. The alternate look with the hand-painted hibiscus panel in place; the grey 3D-printed jewelry dividers sit in the open bay at left. One of the two hand-painted lid panels held in hand — a sunflower over a lavender field and blue swirl — with finger-joint tabs cut along the edges to slot into the case. Its companion panel: a red-orange hibiscus on a green ground. The two panels swap in as the organizer's top cover. Top-down on the 3D-printed dividers in use — rings, hair ties, scrunchies and necklaces each sorted into their own cell, beside a tray of hair clips and a headband. The 3D-printed insert on its own: an L-shaped grid of cells I modeled to drop into the jewelry bay. A small flip-up lidded compartment, opened to show contact-lens cases and little bottles kept out of sight. The tiny secret drawer eased open by its scalloped finger-pull, tucked into the base beneath the pyrography. The same secret drawer pulled fully out, nested between the stepped compartments. Emptied out: the stepped tiered compartments, the 3D-printed insert, the secret drawer and the sliding trays, all fitting within the footprint of my client's dresser drawer. Both hand-painted panels laid over the case as its lid, with the full compartment structure exposed alongside.

Parametric Pencil Box

A deceptively complex parametric box: two small storage compartments, a pull-out drawer with an internal stopper so it can’t fall out, and a larger bay — plus a laser-engraved chevron pattern on one end panel. I laid out all the walls first and added the finger-joints last, which made the tedious joinery far easier to reason about. The final build stayed remarkably close to my concept sketch.

The finished pencil box: laser-cut plywood with a chevron-engraved end panel, open bays, and a pull-out drawer with a tab handle.

A three-quarter view with the drawer pulled out; the engraved chevron pattern runs down the end panel. In use on a desk — pens and highlighters in the tall bay, a tape dispenser and sticky notes in the tray, an eraser and note pad in the open drawer. Another in-use angle: scissors and markers in the upper bay, the drawer open below with an eraser and a sticky-note pad. Top-down and empty, showing the two compartments, the open bay, and the drawer slot. From the back: the finger (box) joints that interlock every wall, laser-cut to slot together. Close up on the drawer mouth — the finger joints and the charred edges left by the laser. The drawer's internal stopper: a small tab that catches on the frame so the drawer slides out but can't fall free.

A short clip panning the box joints and the little internal drawer stopper:

I started from a concept sketch, built it up in Fusion 360, and the final piece came out remarkably close to that first drawing:

The initial concept sketch, drawn in OneNote — a front view of the two bays and the drawer.

The Fusion 360 model — every wall and finger-joint parameterized, with the drawer and its stopper as separate components.

360° Phone Stand

A Fusion 360 phone stand built around adjustability: a hinged arm for tilt, a hidden disk in the base that lets the whole stand swivel 360°, a slot that holds an AirPods case, and cutouts under the charger, speaker, and microphone so the phone stays usable — and audible — on calls while docked.

The finished phone-stand model, back three-quarter view — the jointed arm, swivel base, and AirPods slot. The arm's range of motion — the hinged joints fold through a wide arc. A side profile showing how far the phone tilts to change viewing angle. The base shown transparent: the internal disk (red arrow) that lets the whole stand swivel 360°. The AirPods-case slot cut into the base, empty. The same slot with an AirPods case docked in it. Orthographic view of the cutouts under the charger, speaker, and microphone so the phone stays usable while docked.

I started from the phone itself — measuring it by hand and sketching the back and front with all the cutouts before modeling the cradle in Fusion 360.

Hand-drawn dimension sketch of the phone's back — camera module, side buttons, and bottom port/speaker cutouts, with measurements in inches.

Hand-drawn dimension sketch of the phone's front outline, used to size the cradle.

Articulating LED Lamp

An articulating desk lamp with an upper and lower arm joined by circular metal plates, with magnets epoxied into the joints so the arm can rotate and hold its pose.

The finished LED lamp — a laser-cut plywood arm with rectangular cutouts, jointed to a stacked-ply round base with an on/off switch.

Wavy-Front Marquetry Box

A small two-drawer box with an undulating, sculpted front, built in walnut and maple — the dark walnut body and top set against the pale maple of the wavy drawer fronts and their matching curved pulls. It’s the veneer-and- solid-wood counterpart to the laser work above, and it was made in the same shop as my foldable marquetry lap desk — the two are photographed together below.

A wavy-fronted two-drawer box in walnut and maple, its curved maple drawer pulls echoing the undulating front, sitting on the makerspace bench beside the folding marquetry lap desk.

📓 Origins / build log: the full day-by-day process for these builds — client briefs, Fusion models, and fabrication notes — lives on my Lawrenceville design portfolio.