Ninjabread Men

After seeing a picture of some similar ninjabread men cutters by Fred & Friends on epicwinftw.com I HAD to have some. Not being one to just buy something, I thought I'd have a go at making my own using strips of 0.5mm stainless steel and a jig to bend it around.

Not being a dab hand with graphics software I twisted the arm of my friend gmjhowe to make me some outlines. The ninjas in the PDF he sent me back are pure awesome, and should be a wee bit easier to make than the shapes of the originals I got my inspiration from.

Once the artwork was done I could cut out a template to use to bend the strips of sheet steel I had bought into the desired shape.

Read on to see details on how to get the best result and how to make the all important template.

Step 1 Tools, Materials & Ingredients

None of these are absolutely necessary, you should be able to get by with less, use your imagination! The steps after this one show how I used some of the below tools to make the ninjabread man production process smoother and easier.

Tools: ( a selection of, not all necessary)

• tin snips
• long nosed pliers
• a fat, straight, round pen
• a thin, straight, round  pen (a felt tip would be handy, since it can also write on steel)
• gloves (may be useful if you have soft hands)
• sand paper
• a vice
• a printer
• a spot welder / pop rivets / araldite

Materials:

• paper
• ply wood (or acrylic)

Ingredients:

See step 13.

Comments

[mysss]

I'd have put the shinier side inside for the (probably slight?) decrease in friction. This is an awesome idea! Now we can make whatever cookie shapes we want!!

[Some Dork]

These are great! Someone actually sent me a link for the "for sale" versions of these a few weeks back, I love that you devised a good way to "home bake" them, as it were. :)

[WingsandFences]

Really nice! Love the ninjas, but really love the tut on how to create your own cookie cutters.

[Jayefuu]

Thanks :)

[sparkynz]

Great project

Do you think I could make these cutters out of Acrylic Strip? It will be easier to bend using a heat gun /hairdryer.

I would mkae the templates out of MDF which would be a little taller than the acrylic strip.

[sparkynz]

HIYA

Will have a go and let you know the results.

Mike look at this for a school project?

Can make other shapes, if the acrylic works out?

[Jayefuu]

You could try, I'm not sure the edges would be sharp enough to cut the dough, it might just squish it.

[The House]

Holy moses that's awesome.

[Jayefuu]

~Thanks

[candy924]

good work! i'm sure my son is gonna love them!

[8ntfrogn]

would cooper and a scroll saw work for these?
I may just have to buy them but I want different poses. Thanks

[9ale7]

can you tell us more about the Laser cutter?
i like the end results on the acrylic :)

[Jayefuu]

What would you like to know? And yes, the results with acrylic are great. Things come out particuarly nice with clear frosted acrylic, and the etch which isn't shown in this ible comes out very nicely. There are a few more laser cut projects on my blog if you're interested, they didn't make it to instructables. Link is on my profile.

J

[9ale7]

hi, i would love to make my own one ;)
might be to much for a newbie, but i'm all fired up to make my CNC,

so whether you tell me about you're or how did you make the laser cut alone? (can it cut in a manual way without a CNC Router??)

and better to give me an idea about the budget :P

(by the way i did check you're blog but still can not find a picture or a post regarding the Laser Cut it self)

and thank u 4 the respond.

[Jayefuu]

Oh!

The laser cutter I used I didn't make. It's a Chinese import, bought from a company called HPC Lasers.

It's a fairly low cost (4k gbp), 40W laser cutter. You can get much more expensive ones, but this one gives great results despite having poorly translated safety signs and slightly dodgy software.

If you want to see more about it I'll hurry up the blog post I'm writing about ways we've improved it. It now has a nozzle to direct the air closer to the job, a screen on a stand I bolted to the side, and the PC to edit the jobs is now located in the cabinet underneath it. We've also now got several nice ways to line up jobs, since once you've cut something, if you move it it is really hard to get it back into the same place to start working on it again.

[9ale7]

wooow, way off the BUDGET !! for a first time ..
yet i would love to see you're post :)

[Broom]

I've wanted to do this for YEARS!!!!, but didn't have the knowledge to work with bending metal. Lack of experience can equal timidity to try!

Thanks for the clues! It sounds much easier than I thought it would be.

Also, you can buy small pieces of aluminum flashing from DIY/plumbing/hardware stores, that would probably work well for this.

I'd join the lapped edges with either a metal "weld" epoxy like JB Weld, or by running a solder bead along them, because I don't have access to a spot welder.

Thanks again!

[srilyk]

You could use a rivet instead - if you did a pop rivet from the inside that could probably work without munging your cookies too bad.

[Jayefuu]

Yup, that's among the options in step 12 :)

[jjmcgaffey]

Do be careful about what you use to connect them, since these will be used on food. I don't know JB Weld - how toxic is it? And if you solder, make sure it's lead-free. That sort of thing.

Not as important for these as for a bowl or baking pan, since they touch the food only for a short time, but still something to consider.

[Broom]

Good points, jjmcgaffey. JB Weld is insoluble in water & alcohol, and after about 24 hrs has very low volatile content (outgassing), so it's food-safe.

Great point about the solder. Modern plumbing solder is silver-based, and therefore food-safe; electrician's solder may contain lead.

[denniszel]

Great job, , if you attach a long handle to the top of the cutter you can make ninja outline " cookies" , just heat some oil in pan and let the mold get hot, then dip in pancake mix being very careful not to let it flow over the top edge of the mold, since the mold is hot, it will slightly cook the batter, then take it out and put it in the frying pan, since the oil will be very hot , it will release the fried batter , just wait for it to fry a little, take it out and sprinkle some sugar on it and amaze your friends witha " how the hell this you do this" , below are pictures os similar mods and the resulting " cookie"

[trophywife]

i cannot 'favorite' this hard enough. nice work, sir!!

[e_doe19]

Thanks for posting this 'ible! I have thought before about fashioning my own cutters for various shapes I wanted but could not find. But I never knew exactly how to do the metal bending. Your photos about that are great and I'm looking forward to making all kinds of custom shapes now. Thanks again. : )

[Jayefuu]

I shall be writing a more generic one soon with more helpful techniques. I hope to have a step devoted to printable templates that others can contribute to.

[bgepp1]

Very cool! Are these made from Tae-Kwon-Dough?

:)

Brent Geppert

[Jayefuu]

Ha. *tips hat*

[Fretka]

omg.... that is funny !! :) lol

[FIClarityJane]

Is there any chance you could please link me to the seller on ebay? Thanks!

[Jayefuu]

Their ebay name was "polished-metal-offcuts".

[FIClarityJane]

Thank-you! :D

[Tinworm]

A very cool instructable.

I liked the friendly tact used by Fredandfriends when they wrote to you and I like your response.

You are a creative guy, so I'd have thought that if you fancied selling templates for biscuit cutters, you'd be able to come up with lots of original and interesting shapes which would appeal.

Very impressive stuff; I feel inspired.
Thanks

[Jayefuu]

Thanks. There will be some Halloween ones, so stay tuned! :D

[Tinworm]

Excellent news

[Aeshir]

[cowscankill]

Best idea. Ever.

[Jayefuu]

Thanks, the idea's not mine. But they were a lot more fun to make than they would have been to buy. Plus the commercial ones looked a little small and skinny.

[fredandfriends]

Dear Jayefuu, We recently became aware of your "DIY" version of an item we recently released called Ninjabread Men. We here at Fred love the Instructables community and all that it stands for. We have licensed a number of ideas from DIY designers that we felt would make great commercial products. Our company blog even has a section dedicated to Fred "hacks"- showcasing people that use our products in new and interesting ways. Many of these people go on to sell these new (original) creations- and we're cool with that. If $8 is too much for someone to spend on a set of cookie cutters and feel you can do create them yourself, more power to you.
We do have a little problem when someone creates an exact duplicate of our product and profits from that.
If we find an original idea on a craft or DIY blog, we immediately contact the designer to obtain rights to manufacture and distribute his or her idea.
The Ninjabread idea was licensed from an English designer, to whom we pay royalties for its use. Your actions directly affect his ability to make money, and possibly infringe on his copyright. I would therefore urge you to reconsider the sale of your templates.
And if, in the future you can come up with a new, original idea, we might be interested licensing it from you.

Sincerely,
Fred and Friends

[Jayefuu]

Dear Fred and Friends,

Thanks for your comment.

Before your comment was posted I had already removed the offer to sell templates to people, having come to the same conclusion as yourselves, it would have screwed someone else over, and that it wasn't a very good idea.

I'd hope that you don't mind me leaving the instructable "as is", I would expect that you'd get a far greater amount of sales from those too lazy to print and make their own that the loss from the few that do decide to go the DIY route since it's had quite a lot of attention. Would you agree?

Regards,
Jayefuu

[Jayefuu]

P.S. I added a link to your product in the intro as bribery :)