These earrings are made from CD, DVD and a vinyl (from LP records). I love this material because it’s fairly color neutral yet it has structural color. It reflects light and the interference patterns create color.

CD material is super shiny is very light weight and I’ve been getting some very positive feedback on that.

Don’t hesitate to contact me at darcy@inventorArtist.com or see the store page. Also I’m looking for CDs and vinyl records that are being disposed of.

I started with three simple designs. Brocade, Cameo, Spindle (45RPM Spindle Adapter), Africa Cassette, Pixelated T-Rex and Guitar Pick.

That was really popular so I made new designs and experimented with heat treating the CDs in a soldering reflow oven.

Another fun angle on the up-cycle jewelry project.

I’m applying heat using a re-flow oven I’m making up for soldering.

Engraving

I’ve got a few designs that use engraving as well as the profile cutting.

Packaging

I’ve been looking at how to make packaging to protect this stuff while it’s in transit to it’s new home. In the past I have experimented with little boxes made from old record covers. Today I decided to make a case out of a CD. I started to drill holes in the black insert but realized the spindle snap can clamp the earrings.

How It’s Made

I am designing these with a Sketchup CAD program.

I made prototypes and and the final pieces on a CNC machine.

Here’s a video of the same machine making parts for a painting robot. It also made several drawing robots. This is a failed version of the robot by the way.

Here it is actually cutting a CD.

Experiments

I did a fair amount of experimentation with vinyl and CDs leading up to this.

Related

CD and DVD cutting projects

Other CNC projects

Vinyl projects

Published on: Jun 7, 2015 @ 09:18