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Grid Beam

gridbeam.xyz

185 pointsTomte67 comments

I would caution against using something like this for a bunk bed or loft bed. It’s a potentially fatal accident waiting to happen. At the very least, you should stick to a design that has been thoroughly tested and rated for load. Even so, the temptation to modify it is always there, especially for kids. And as a parent, it may not be obvious when it’s been modified because there are holes all over the place.

As you can probably tell, I’m a parent with kids who have used bunk beds and loft beds.

There are two separate concerns here.

Is the design adequate?

Will children do something risky?

"Yes," and "Yes" irrespective of how their bed is built.

Conversation is the second best way to address the second "Yes."

Play the best way.

That’s why designs of things like beds have to prevent them getting their necks caught, for example. There was a carpenter selling custom beds in the UK, but there were a number of fatal accidents because he hadn’t designed it properly.

Source on this? Quick websearch didn't reveal anything.

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/crime/toddler-almost-ha...

Just saw a video the other day of people cutting a chair because a kid went through it legs-first and got stuck.

It's a design consideration I hadn't thought that much about.

It's like the image of getting stuck in one of those spiral "ladders"(?) on the playground, by climbing down the middle of it.

That bunk bed design looks pretty flimsy to me. Yes, there's a set of cross cables across part of the back and across one end, but the rest looks like it would parallelogram pretty easily.

I generally agree, especially for kids' furniture, but the pre-drilled grid-beam compatible beams from McMaster-Carr[1] (which is likely just 80/20 Ready Tube) are incredibly strong. I've made a bunch of office desk & table structures and they are still going strong years later.[2][3]

[1]: Aluminum Bolt-Together Framing https://www.mcmaster.com/product/8809T7

[2]: Grid-beam office tables https://twitter.com/hugs/status/824028862753439744

[3]: Grid-beam office tables https://twitter.com/hugs/status/1089303146533396481

Ken Isaacs - How to Build Your Living Structures

https://archive.org/details/How.To.Build.Your.Own.Living.Str...

Wow, this is awesome, thanks for sharing. Perhaps a bit jury rigged, but I love the ingenuity and the rough aesthetics.

I came to post this. I got this spiral bound techno hippie book at the bookstore when I was 12. Blew my mind.

Wow! Love to see this here! I'm currently sitting at a desk made of Grid Beam!

Grid Beam is great for prototyping, temporary projects, or furniture where you'd want customizability/flexibility. Folks are right about the aesthetic - it ain't pretty. But the flexibility is well worth it for some things.

TLA suggests buying a kit but you can make it yourself - I bought a drill press and a bunch of 2x2s and went to town. It's a time sink for sure, but once you've got a bunch of "sticks" (as they call them) drilled and standing by, you can quickly put together all sorts of things. Last weekend my SO wanted some shelves for growing her seed starts and in less than half an hour we built them out of Grid Beam. When the seed starts are done, we'll take the shelves apart and the Grid Beam can be re-used for the next project.

Basic DIY instructions: cut 2x2s to lengths of 3, 6, 9, 12 inches, and multiples of 6 inches after that (1', 1.5', 2', etc). Drill holes 3/4" inch apart. The first holes should be 3/8" from each end. I use 5/16" holes I think, and 1/4-20 bolts.

Some other projects I've made with grid beam:

  - my desk
  - a card table
  - a bike stand for maintenance
  - a music stand

Other things I think it would be great for:

  - 3d printer enclosure (beats a lack stack in customizability)
  - High school plays: stage furniture/sets/props (painted of course)
  - garage furniture - work bench, shelves, etc

The "Grid Beam book"[1] has loads of tips for making your own grid beam, project tips and ideas, and more.

Some more resources:

  - Read a sample of "The Grid Beam Book"[2]
  - Buy it from the publisher [1]
  - Open source design for a Grid Beam making machine [3]

  [1] https://newsociety.com/books/h/how-to-build-with-grid-beam-pdf?sitedomain=us&undefined
  [2] https://books.google.com/books?id=H9D4l0q96vAC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_vpt_buy#v=onepage&q&f=false
  [3] https://www.core77.com/projects/69637/BeamCNC-Works-with-Common-Materials-to-Help-Produce-Grid-Beam-Projects

My sister asked me the other day "is gridbeam a thing?" and I said "yes, for me and about 5 other people in the world." Nice to see it make the front page of HN. I had been trying to come up with a modular construction system for years and when I discovered gridbeam it was pretty game-changing. Not so much because it saves me from having to do any woodworking, though being able to re-use the parts is nice when it happens, but more because it provides a framework within which I can design parts and know they'll all be compatible with each other. If this desk project doesn't work out, I know it'll be easy to re-use everything. More thoughts: https://www.nuke24.net/plog/26.html

Tip for people trying to advertise something: You have a limited amount of time to get people's attention. Once a video is longer than 2-3 minutes, people's willingness to even start watching it goes down, and you better show something interesting in the first 20 seconds.

1 minute into the video is the first time they even mention the product. Which happens to look suspiciously like standard pieces I've seen in the hardware store.

Would also add that having an autoplay background showing a few different uses of your product in 5 second cut clips would be effective too. Right now I have a hard time telling in 10 seconds of landing what the product does.

Also, if your YouTube hosted video that’s an ad for your product has other ads inserted into it by the platform, it’s probably too long.

The video was not produced by the people making Grid Beam, but by Kirsten Dirksen, who covers all kinds of DIY/Sustainable/etc. unique and largely housing-related things https://www.youtube.com/@kirstendirksen

For an even more customizable solution check out 8020(1)

They’re not cheap, but they have engineers on staff who will help you finalize your project.

I’ve used them for several things in the past and have been quite happy.

(1) https://8020.net/

This is, in fact, just a (more expensive) version of 80/20 Ready-Tube with a wooden option, which is really nice (80/20 is aluminum only). It should be compatible with existing 80/20 hardware.

80/20 also offers project plans for some furniture: https://8020.net/xdiy1601

Wow, I made an account to download the BoM and that coffee table’s total price of materials is $1108 and the end table is $1378. I was expecting less than half that.

If I have to almost design my coffee table from scratch, including sawing all the pieces to length, then I don't really expect the parts to cost much more than $30. The real investment was my time...

You can buy 8020 compatible stuff from other retailers for much cheaper.

Or https://openbuilds.com/

I mean, it's cute but I'm pretty sure most DIYers own a drill. Or wood glue.

"A bunch of holes in a matrix" is useful if say you're designing a wall where you want to attach different things at different positions, but for anything else permanent you can just... buy the raw stock and drill them at exact spot you need

My experience with something smaller scale (Makerbeam, screws used to press fit instead of holes so it can be screwed together at near-any position, not just at hole position) is that in the end it's nice to prototype but there will be inevitably either too short or too long piece and when you need to start cutting them the benefits go out of the window

Having holes everywhere isn't also great from furniture perspective, harder to clean and might not exactly be aesthetically pleasing

I'm not a DIYer and I don't own a drill. Having something like this be widely available and affordable would be a game changer for me.

>don't own a drill

Power drill is $50 and would serve you at least 10 years and is a must for any home. Hand saw is enough.

>affordable

Pre-drilled set can't be cheap, that's the catch. $15 for a meter of beam? Ridiculous.

I borrowed a friend's drill for a week when I moved in and had to use it like twice. I haven't missed it since. What you consider a must is just stuff taking up space for me. I'll buy one when I need it.

And I'm not going to start building my own furniture with a saw and a drill. I wish I had that kind of time or energy, there's a thousand things I'd do if I had.

I'm pretty sure pre drilled sets could be cheap with the right economy of scale. I doubt it'll get there, though.

> And I'm not going to start building my own furniture with a saw and a drill

And you wont with that. You will buy it, maybe build 2 things, then decide they are fucking ugly and buy something off ikea, putting the holey sticks back into the box and never touching them again. Then complain they were more expensive than the ikea thing.

This type of thing is already available, in many different forms.

https://www.grainger.com/category/electrical/conduit-fitting...

I use 80/20 (this is a version 80/20 ready tube with a wooden option) all the time at work to build temporary (and sometimes permanent) desks, tables, cabinets, and test stands.

There are a few advantages of predrilled hardware like this:

1) Holes always line up (don’t need to worry about drilling off-center)

2) only one tool needed (bandsaw to cut to length), reduces how many people need to get safety training on other tools

3) compatibility across a wide variety of components (brackets, rollers, etc)

4) quickly reposition furniture without the need for any power tools

5) no measuring, just count holes

I would view this as having a few applications for home use:

1) anyone who moves frequently - easy to flat pack everything, easy to customize for a new space

2) Anyone may want to build temporary for various projects (e.g. sewing table this month, drafting table the next)

Not sure about cleaning for home applications. At work we just spray everything down but perhaps you could use grommets.

80/20 and other T/V slotted things seems like better approach for system like that

I've started collecting a system of 1" steel tube (sadly now 3USD/ft). make little 90 degree clamps out of 1 1/4 tube (w/ 1/8 walls) that have been cut down the middle the long way. weld little flanges on em and tap one side.

now you can pretty much go wild. desktop? throw some of the 1 1/4 on the bottom and you can just plug in the legs. monitor? make a bracket with a 10cm x 10cm vest plate welded on. wall panels in wood or steel with 1" backing frames? make some clamps with 2 1/2 and 1/4 wall tube

the 1/16 wall tube is fairly easy to cut with a manual hacksaw. get a portaband if you are spending too much time.

I really do think everyone is easily capable of learning to do this kind of work with a minimal investment of time and tooling and really can't imagine why people don't just make their own shelving and other basic furniture.

It does have a higher first cost. You can buy a cheap Ikea desk for $50. Building the same thing out of 8020 would cost you over $60 just for the extrusion. Than you would need fasteners, a tabletop, etc. Or you could just buy a nicer looking/more durable commercially available desk for that money.

Unless of course you have a specific need for that flexibility/reuseability.

You can't really make wooden slotted extrusion though. There are also cases where getting things level quickly is super important, which is harder to do with slotted extrusion.

"Lining up" is a huge time-saver - compare making some shelves out of wood, where you will want to be fairly careful to measure the position of each shelf on each side to make them square and level, with "count 20 holes down on each side" (and I say this as someone who mostly knocks things together out of wood since I have more of it around - but still admire the Lego-esque predictability of extrusions).

> I mean, it's cute but I'm pretty sure most DIYers own a drill. Or wood glue.

I do, and I use them to make gridbeam.

Someone created a CNC mill to make Grid Beams [1]. However, I cannot find anything authoritative on whether Grid Beam itself is open source.

[1] https://hackaday.com/2017/09/27/beamcnc-computer-controlled-...

> whether Grid Beam itself is open source

"Grid beam is a system of beams in which the width of each beam is equal to the hole spacing."

There's your source right there.

The complaints about ugliness are begging for a startup to come in and make a whole line of veneer panels and beams with various materials and finishes, a printing service that paints user uploaded images and patterns, and one-click order for hundreds of project kits. Saying grids can't be beautiful is just issuing a challenge to artists.

And for people who like their power tools, it just doesn't seem like a big deal, but there is a whole segment of DIY that doesn't want a shop table, sawdust, blades and drills in their life. There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of putting together premade kits - IKEA does that, just in a more disposable single-use fashion.

The thing that I suspect most holds back the idea is in making it pencil out, because you'd most likely need a factory or retail outlet near the customer to overcome shipping heavy kits, and there's an inherent overengineering that comes with the modular approach that means that a grid beam bookcase isn't going to come in anywhere near the cost of an IKEA Billy.

The holes are not what make this ugly

Whilst it's appealing to have the benefits of Grid Beam and be able to knock something together quickly, there's something hard to pinpoint about the clunky aesthetic and lack of a design look that's deeply unappealing.

Where is the thought about proportions, beauty in structure, care in construction etc. The Arts and Craft in the late 1800s / early 1900s cherished these aspects and it has stood the test of time, whereas these things tend to look like they were built by a crank who had few people to let down but themselves.

Maybe a designer or a more artistic engineer could take Grid Beam and tweak it, provide some better guidance / templates, and inject a bit of love and creative spirit into a version 2?

We're working on it! Open source parametric designs with a 3D interface.

Check out http://www.gridkit.nz

Oh nice, where in NZ are you based?

Also check out https://loose.parts

Reminds me of Dieter Rams’ Vitsoe shelving system: https://www.vitsoe.com/gb/606/components

I'm quite a fan of String shelving and furniture, it's similar to Vitsoe but a little more affordable: https://stringfurniture.com/

It's also a mid-century design by couple Kajsa & Nisse Strinning.

This concept should be much more common.

I desperately hope something like this gets popular. I see one off ideas every now and then but there's not one big system that's easily purchasable yet.

They kinda are but they are also quite pricy compared to raw materials. And there is not that much market for "DIY but overpay for materials instead of getting actual drill and some fasteners"

It is already super common, this is the basics of DIY projects

I looked for it several times online and DIY stores but never seen anything like this (at least not for constructing objects of that size).

Reminds me of Fischertechnik: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischertechnik

Or Merkur (Constructo, Build-O, Tecc): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkur_(toy)

Oh, so a wooden Erector set, just bigger.

Wood's pretty re-usable as is, and these look ugly as sin

Reminds me of the V-slot and T-slot aluminium extrusion that’s often used to build light duty equipment like 3D printers.

This is kinda... worse version of it

Looks like you could do some damage with those bolts on the chair if you caught on them.

But this is a cool concept.

This is pretty much real scale lego.

Literally! The mathematical requirement for grid beam is that the width of the beam matches the hole-to-hole distance in the beams. Lego technic beams are 8mm wide, and the hole-to-hole distance is 8mm. Lego is small-scale grid beam.

Example grid beam tri-joint made with Lego Technic pieces: https://twitter.com/hugs/status/1619804592199577601

So, what's interesting here?

It's not new, it's something like scaled Meccano from 1901. In its scale it's useless cause of reliability of fastenings over time, dust and ugly appearance. DIY is (typically) quite the opposite. Let it be, but you have to lose your childhood to buy something like that.

The UK has this for decades.

It's call Dexion.

I now have visions of a chair made of Dexion, with nasty sharp edges and cuts on my legs...

I wouldn't exactly call them equivalent, similar concept yes, but a timber frame is more accessible to hobbyist and more "home" friendly.

I googled Dexion and found this company [0] but it looks like it does shelving more in an industrial setting - warehouses and such. Do they also have products that allow you to do more DIY projects for the home like small shelves, desks etc, or is it a different company / brand?

[0] https://www.dexion.co.uk/products/

Metric or imperial measurements?

There are examples for both. The system can work in any unit system because it relies on the equality between width of the beams and the width between holes.

I love everything about this.

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