The workshop's models database

A models database that refuses

A catalogue of this workshop's own printable designs: parts with utility for the projects here, and mechanical pieces that are simply good to play with. What makes it a database rather than a folder is the gate in front of it. Nothing enters marked printable without a mesh gate run, and nothing is called proven without a physical print record.

Where this is right now

26 families are in: 8 as mesh files, 18 as generators. Exactly 2 families have a physical print behind them. The other stages below say what they are: mesh-gated meshes nobody has printed, designs the gate has not fully cleared, and files the gate does not measure at all.

0 entries carry the certified mark. That field is a signed judgement of whether a thing is genuinely worth wanting, it is not machine-testable, and the gate refuses any attempt to set it without a signed line.

Compiled 2026-08-04 · mesh gate run 2026-08-04 · every word on this page is written in the builder, not taken from the data

01The proving ladder

Every mesh family sits at exactly one station, and moving right takes evidence, not editing: a gate run moves a family to mesh-gated, a physical print with a date, a machine, a material and a duration moves it to proven. The bars are drawn from the same data file the cards below come from.

unmeasured3 the gate returns no verdict
design1 gate not fully green
mesh-gated2 every part passes, nothing printed
proven2 a physical print record exists

A green gate is a claim about a mesh. A print record is a claim about the world. This page never lets the first impersonate the second.

02The families

One card per family. Each square is one part, drawn from that part's own gate record.

passes the gate under its declared class fails it, and says so unmeasured a picture mesh, never printed

The marble run kit

printed and held

It is a modular marble run: spiral chutes, drop tubes, sort heads, catch cups and braces that couple into towers.

34 of 34 parts pass tools/qa_stl.py under their declared classes, run 2026-08-04.

Printed: 2026-08-02, K2 Plus, PLA, 38.5 min, 4 pieces held.

Source: the marble files, designed here from scratch.

The printer stand

printed and held

It is a three-leg cast stand: printed vase formwork for legs, base and platform, filled with plaster over bamboo ties.

8 of 8 parts pass tools/qa_stl.py under their declared classes, run 2026-08-04. 1 picture mesh is drawn for looking at, never printed, never judged.

Printed: 2026-08-01, K2 Plus, PLA, 96 min, 3 pieces held.

Source: the stand files, designed here from scratch.

The name dumbbell

mesh-gated, never printed

It is a dumbbell cast in printed formwork, a name embossed into the end faces.

2 of 2 parts pass tools/qa_stl.py under their declared classes, run 2026-08-04. 1 picture mesh is drawn for looking at, never printed, never judged.

Source: the gift files, designed here from scratch.

The weighted bin

mesh-gated, never printed

It is a bin printed as formwork, with real cast weight in the base.

2 of 2 parts pass tools/qa_stl.py under their declared classes, run 2026-08-04.

Source: the gift files, designed here from scratch.

Bamboo joints

design stage, the gate is not fully green

It is joints for quarter-inch bamboo rods: sleeves, hubs, tees, feet and graded shims.

18 of 23 parts pass tools/qa_stl.py under their declared classes, run 2026-08-04. The gate fails these, so they are not printable as they stand: bamboo/shim_5.8.stl, bamboo/shim_5.9.stl, bamboo/shim_6.0.stl, bamboo/shim_6.1.stl, bamboo/shim_6.2.stl. 8 picture meshes are drawn for looking at, never printed, never judged.

Source: the bamboo files, designed here from scratch.

Print-in-place chainmail

unmeasured: the gate returns no verdict

It is a fabric of interlocked rings printed flat in one run.

2 binary files. The mesh gate raises its own width probe assertion partway through and never reaches a verdict, so nothing is claimed about them, not even watertightness. The bug is in the gate, not known to be in the files, and until it is fixed these are not measurable here.

Source: the fabric files, designed here from scratch.

The balls line

unmeasured: the gate returns no verdict

It is trays and tracks for steel balls, including a space-filling channel tray.

11 files, exported as ASCII STL. The mesh gate judges only binary STL, so nothing is claimed about them, not even watertightness.

Source: in a repository that is not public yet, designed here from scratch.

The primitives line

unmeasured: the gate returns no verdict

It is elemental sensory shapes: a brush base, a massager dome, springy stick sheets.

4 files, exported as ASCII STL. The mesh gate judges only binary STL, so nothing is claimed about them, not even watertightness.

Source: in a repository that is not public yet, designed here from scratch.

03The generator shelf

These designs are code, not files: each is a Python generator that draws its toolpath directly, and the object exists only when a machine runs it. There is nothing here to download and slice, which is why they sit on their own shelf instead of the ladder. Printed pieces of several exist in the workshop, and no per-piece record is kept for them yet, so none of them claims proven.

04What refuses entry

The admission rules are code (tools/models-check.py, in this site's own repository, which is not public yet). Before the real database is allowed through, every rule is run against a deliberately broken part and watched to reject it. The mesh gate they call, tools/qa_stl.py, is public next to the meshes it judges. The short form:

  1. M1A part must be a binary STL the mesh gate can judge. ASCII exports are listed as unmeasured, and an unmeasured family claims nothing.
  2. M2Every part declares the workflow class it is judged under. A vase surface judged as a solid fails for being what it is; the class is part of the fact.
  3. M3Every green square traces to a real run of the crackle mesh gate, re-derived on every check, both directions: a declared pass that fails is a lie, a declared fail that passes is stale.
  4. M4Assembled scenes and bent-shape verification meshes are pictures. They are never judged and never offered as printable.
  5. M5A design whose own generator quarantined its output stays out until a newer regeneration supersedes the quarantine.
  6. M6Own designs only, or reverse-engineered from a real original held here. A downloaded third-party model never enters, whatever its licence.
  7. M7Every family declares its licence state, including the honest state of having none.
  8. M8Proven means a print record: date, machine, material, duration. All four, or the word is refused.
  9. M9The certified mark takes a signed, dated line. Taste is not machine-testable, so the machine's job is to refuse the unsigned claim.
  10. M10A family member's vertical cannot enter by data alone: it takes a recorded consent line and a human edit to the gate itself.
  11. M11This page is generated from the data file, byte for byte. A hand edit cannot ship.
  12. M12No addresses, no phone numbers, no place names, no way to reach the household from this page.

05Rights, honestly

No licence is declared yet, so no rights are granted. The files can be read in the repository and nothing more is promised. The mesh families live in the crackle repository together with the gate that judges them, so the verdicts on this page can be re-run by anyone.