An 83-year-old woman needed a new lower jawbone last year for transplant and instead of a traditional implant, the medical team used a 3D printed jawbone manufactured by LayerWise. The transplant was carried out in the Netherlands last June and it has just now been announced. The implant was printed out of a titanium powder using a laser, layer-by-layer until the finished product was completed. The implant is a complicated part with articulated joints and cavities to provoke muscle attachment along with grooves to direct the regrowth of nerves and veins.

According to the team, it took 33 layers of titanium melted using the laser for 1 mm of height. That means that the finished jawbone had many thousands of laser passes. One of the interesting parts of the 3D printed jawbone is that it has a special double bridge that was attached and false teeth screwed in the that dental bridge. Also interesting is that the finished titanium jawbone weighs 107g, which is about one-third heavier than the replaced bone.

[via BBC]

What you’re staring at here is a giant Scrabble board, which measures in at nearly 49 square feet. It’s made by artist John Kahn, using Russian birch plywood, covered with galvanized steel and vinyl game graphics. Each one of the game’s 100 tiles is made from wood with a strong magnet inside, and measures a whopping 4-3/8″ square. The board also comes with two wall-mounted tile holders, and a pair of tile racks for game play – though it would have been nice for them to include two more – in case you want to play a four-player game.

Only nine of this gigantic Scrabble set are being made, and with a price tag of $12,000(USD), I can’t imagine they’ll all be snapped up quickly. But if you have enough enough capital to afford one, you can check it out over at Hammacher Schlemmer now.

[via SUATMM]

The Sparxgear Fire Piston is based on technology that first began in South East Asia and the Pacific Islands to kindle fire in ancient times. This Kickstarter project is simply a hollow anodized aluminum cylinder and a piston used to create an ember.

A piece of fuel, wood or cloth, is put on the end of the piston and then quickly compressed. This causes the fuel in the piston to combust allowing someone to then use it to start a fire. Pretty sweet camping accessory huh?

If you want one, a pledge of $35 (USD) or more will get you in on the fire-starting action.

[via Geeky-Gadgets]

Gavio’s TOAST! speaker dock looks like one of those shiny metal toasters you might find in your kitchen. Just don’t expect to toast up any bread in this thing. For starters, it’s only got a single slot. It also doesn’t have a heating element – instead, it’s got a speaker and a 3 watt amplifier inside. It’s also got a built-in Li-Ion battery so you don’t even need to plug it in.

The dial on the front changes volume instead of the darkness of your toast, while I’m not sure what the toast plunger does. I’m hoping that it changes tracks, and doesn’t just sit there looking cool. All I know is that is should have a bagel mode for cramming in older, thicker phones.

Gavio hasn’t announced the pricing or release date yet for the TOAST! dock, but I’m hoping we’ll see it pop up sometime early in 2012.

So if signs don’t do it, then why not give visual cues a shot? That’s what designers Eun Ah Kim, Jinhyuk Rho and Maria Rho decided with their Arrow Door Handle.

The entire door handle is shaped like an arrow pointing in direction where the door’s supposed to open. Obviously, this design works best (and only) with glass doors, given the nature of the handle itself.

And even the Arrow Door Handle concept is never produced, you could just take the time to read the sign on the door.

[via Yanko Design]

FLOTE is currently up on Kickstarter for funding. It’s basically a modern metal stand that can hold your iPad, Kindle, PlayBook, Galaxy Tab, or whatever tablet you may have. No longer will you have to tilt your head while watching a movie or reading a book; no longer will you have to support the gadget in your hands, because the FLOTE takes care of all the not-so-heavy-lifting for you.

What the FLOTE gives you is a truly hands-free tablet usage experience. That is, if you don’t mind having something that resembles a microphone stand right in the middle of your bedroom or living room.

Ready to FLOTE your tablet? Head on over to Kickstarter. A pledge of $245(USD) or more will get you an actual FLOTE stand, while lesser amounts will score you rewards including microfiber screen cloths, sweatshirts, and commemorative pieces.

[via Oh Gizmo!]

The sculpture tells the story of the birth of Christ through three robotic wisemen, Mary, Joseph and sweet little Baby Robot Jesus. Instead of gold, frankincense and myrrh, the Magi are bearing a vacuum tube, a gear, and a set of LEGOs, which seems like a much better set of gifts to me. Except for the gold part. Maybe the gear is made of gold, though.

This adorable and humorous sculpture was made by Day of the Robot. It measures about 10.5″(w) x 5.5″(d), and the robots are crafted from Ultracal (high-strength plaster), wire, and polymer clay. The whole thing is set onto a metal base, which has LEDs underneath to illuminate the auspicious occasion.

If you’re a robot geek and have a sense of humor about the holidays, you can grab this unique Robot Nativity scene over at Etsy for $200 (USD).

Tom has created hundreds of these sculptures, entirely made out of scrap car and motorcycle parts. You’ll find animals, vehicles, people, creatures from fantasy and even some furniture in his collection. Many of the sculptures aren’t small, either. His T-Rex is about 28 feet in height. The build process involves collecting cars from a junkyard, then sorting through the parts. Then they are cleaned, and welded together, then polished and lacquered. Nothing is wasted.

It takes about 400 hours to complete a large sculpture. This translates to about two to three months.

Tom has recently started to collaborate with his friend Marco Mahler, and they are available for custom work. Check it out here if you want them to make you a special sculpture.

[via DesignYouTrust]

This time, the bookends are officially-licensed Portal merch, so you don’t have to worry about Cave Johnson coming over to your house and throwing some combustible lemons your way for violating his intellectual property rights.

You can grab a pair of Portal bookends over at ThinkGeek now for $25 (USD).

[via Nerd Approved]

If you think about it, the buckle/phone holster is a pretty neat idea, although not very fashionable. If you plan on using it sans placing your iPhone inside, then it’s going to look like a huge brass grill got stuck on your belt somehow. The EXO7 comes with several metal attachments, including a metal piece that you can use to loop your belt through the case and a pocket holster, so you can wear it any way you want to on your belt.

The sides of the EXO7 are inlaid with Pau Ferro wood, while the top cover is hinged on with stainless steel components and fitted with a strong rare earth magnet to shut the holster tightly. The case is available in solid brass and rosewood or aluminum and rosewood, and is priced at $300 (USD) on EVOVault’s Etsy store.

[via Geekologie via Oh Gizmo!]

If you don’t know much about Ravage, he’s one of the Decepticon Soundwave’s cassette robots that he used to eject to perform nefarious duties. He’s been redesigned over the years, and this is the result. He looks quite freaky.

The photos date from 2007, so but I haven’t seen these before. They were uploaded last week to Yang’s Flickr account. Needless to say that if Ravage was real, it would crunch up a number of cars before being brought down. Ironically, he looks like he was made from some of those crunched up cars himself.

[via Make:]

This Wall-E metal sculpture was made by the guys at Kreatworks, and is made from a variety of old car and machine parts – which is only appropriate, since Wall-E himself was assigned to clean up our junk.

Metal Wall-E measures about 47 inches tall by 23 inches square, making him quite a bit larger than I envisioned the little ‘bot in Pixar’s world. And at 150+ pounds, he’s put on a bit of weight too. Still he’s pretty damned cool, and I wouldn’t mind having him stand watch in front of my house.

If you want scrap metal Wall-E for yourself, you’ll need to scrounge up $2,800 (USD) of your hard-earned cash, and head over to Kreatworks.

[via Gamma Squad]

The metal Murphy sculpture is 7.87 feet tall, almost 5 feet long(due to Robocop’s gun), and 3.3 feet wide. It’s made from recycled metal, which includes lots of automotive and machine parts. It’s then coated with lacquer to protect it from rust.

It’s certainly unique, but you’ll have to spend $6,400 to get it and we’re not even talking about shipping – which will certainly be a lot since it’s coming from Bangkok, Thailand. If you’re wondering though, he sold that Jack Sparrow sculpture, so this one will definitely sell soon.

[via Buzzaurus]

The catch with the awesome looking LockCircle is that the thing costs $100 (USD), which seems like a lot for what it does. There were a lot of people out there wondering why the thing is so expensive when it was announced. Now with this video footage of one being made, it’s a lot clearer now why it costs so much. The LockCircle starts off as a round billet aluminum disc strapped to a CNC lathe machine, eventually taking the form shown in the photo above.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

It is so cool to see the billet disc start to spin and then the router bits come in and shave metal off to create the product. You really have to watch the video to see how the thing is made. My favorite part is seeing the laser etching machine burn the name onto the product at the end.

[via PetaPixel]

The Command Key Ring was designed by FORMA Laboratories, and is available in a variety of finishes. Expect to pay $51(USD) for it in stainless steel, but the silver version costs $91 in matte and $101 in glossy finishes. There are also gold and bronze-plated versions for a bit less.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

If the Command Key Ring isn’t your style, check out the other rings available in FORMA Laboratory’s shop on Shapeways. There’s the Power Icon Ring and the LEGO Brick Ring that both look pretty awesome.

[Shapeways via Designyoutrust]

CNC milling machines are becoming more and more common in factories, but rarely do we get to see one in action – and certainly not doing something as cool as this.

Sit back and watch as Daishin Seiki uses a Deckel Maho duoBlock 5-Axis HyperMILL to work its robotic magic, carving an intricate 3D helmet from a solid 264 lb. (120kg) block of aluminum:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Pretty amazing, no? I only wish they made actual motorcycle helmets that looked that cool, but I’m betting the aluminum wouldn’t do a very good job protecting your head.

[via b3ta]

It’s made from sturdy, food-safe titanium, and because of its poor thermal conductivity, will let you sip hot or cold beverages without the straw being adversely affected by the temperature. While you may think that a titanium straw might only be a way to replace a bunch of cheap plastic straws, you should take pause to think of the possibilities. Can your plastic straw do this?…

Not only will you have a metal straw you can keep forever, you can use it to piece through fruit, milk cartons and even aluminum cans without so much as flinching.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can grab yourself a titanium straw over at ThinkGeek for $15 (USD) a piece. Sure, you could buy nearly 1500 plastic straws for the same price, but you wouldn’t be nearly as cool… unless, of course you made something like this out of the 1500 straws:

The team introduces silver or copper into the steel surface using Active Screen Plasma or ASP to create a hybrid metal. The process also introduces nitrogen and carbon to the stainless steel. The silver is a bacterial killing agent and the nitrogen and carbon harden the steel making it more resistant to cleaning and use.

The net result is that germs are less likely to affect you in the kitchen and make you sick and the harder steel makes the material last longer between cleanings. The team tested the material in medical instruments and found that after 120 cleanings, the antibacterial properties were still there and the metal was still resistant to wear.

[via PhysOrg]

While I can’t read Russian, Google translate tells me roughly that the drive was made by a guy going by the moniker “Tarator”, and was modeled using AutoCAD software. He then output the designs to mechanical drawings so each of the components could be fabricated from metal. It’s not clear what materials were used to make it, but it looks like brass to me.

The drive is encased in a metal sleeve that acts as a 5-wheel combination lock, restricting access to the top-secret data payload stored within. I’m not quite sure how all the pins and gears work together to lock it down, but it must have taken some serious engineering talent to pull this off.

[via Fancy]

MicroRAX is a miniature building system made out aluminum that can serve a variety of purposes. Ken Kremer built this adjustable iPad stand using the little metal construction beams. I don’t know what he used to hold the iPad in place, but I’d use some kind of felt to make sure that the structure of the stand doesn’t scratch up the glass screen.

Ken also integrated adjustable hinges, allowing him to move the screen around and adjust its angle.

With its cool industrial style, it looks like an interesting little stand to have around. The overall build looks pretty simple, so you can easily reproduce it from these photos if you pick up some MicroRAX for yourself.

[via Make:]