Penis Stool

This is the instructions and steps I made to create my penis-shaped stool.

Starting from a ready made open-source stool file, it was a matter of a couple of days to have the final object ready to be sat on.

Step 1: Introduction

To make this stool I took Twistab's open source stool as a starting point. Both .dxf and .ai files were provided and I then edited and modified them in Illustrator.

The file was then arranged in the correct layers in Rhinoceros, and uploaded into the CNC milling machine to cut out the pieces. The material used was a (cheap) plywood board, 30mm thick.

Step 2: Inspiration

I took Michelangelo's David penis as an inspiration.

Taking the original stool as a reference, I wanted to keep the same joints, but changing the overall shape to make it look like the famous penis (that can be seen from both sides).

Step 3: Illustrator

After tweaking, dragging and rearranging the overall shape, I ended up with this result.

I didn't edit joints nor the smaller seating part whatsoever, to keep the mechanical strength as it was thought.

Each of the two "leg plates" are made of the same specular profile, since once the stool is mounted you will only see three legs at the time.

I kept all the lines on the same level, because I then organized all the layers in Rhino. One of the most important things to keep in mind was to end up having perfectly closed polylines and curves.

Step 4: Uploading to Rhino and Layers

Once the Illustrator file was ready, I then imported it in Rhinoceros as an .ai file, but paying attention at the import scaling factors.

I then double checked that every line was a closed curve, because the machine's software only reads perfectly closed lines.

Following the instructions given for the Twisttab stool, I organized every line in the correct layer, to allow the CNC milling machine to understand each operation:

Outside layer: the milling machine will follow the closed curve cutting on the outer part
Inside layer: the milling machine will follow the closed curve cutting on the inner part
Pockets layer: the milling machine is set (through its software) to only reach a certain depth on the wood (in this case it was around 18mm), thus creating excavations on the surface
Bridges layer: (simple rectangles that cross the lines) - the machine just skips the inner part of the rectangle and proceeds whenever the rectangle reaches an end. This is to make sure that once the piece is cut it doesn't move inside the machine
Boren layer: holes to fix the board to the machine bed could be created, but I avoided them by manually drilling them

Step 5: CNC Milling

The file was then uploaded on the machine, that started cutting the plywood board (together with other files as well).

The overall time for just my file to be cut out was relatively short, thanks to the simple lines. I also avoided inner cuts as well, to reduce the risk of breaking part afterwards.

Step 6: End Result

Eventually I took the pieces out of the machine, removed the bridges and started sanding the edges.

After finishing all the joints (that required a bit more effort to be able to mount the stool effectively), I put everything together, and this is the end result of my Michelangelo's penis stool.