Boulder Blade,
Fall 2020
Comfort and Care at Your Fingertips
The Boulder Blade is a compact multitool that’s designed with boulderers in mind. Featuring a medium-sized locking blade, skin/nail file, can opener, bottle opener, tick remover, spork, gear loop, and scissors, the Boulder Blade provides utility for every aspect of a climbing trip—from routine skincare to meal-prep and dining. The Boulder Blade boasts a 60% Stainless Steel / 40% Bronze construction, which ensures durability with repeated use, steel rivets for rigidity, and contoured Walnut Scales for comfort and style.
Ideation
I started by creating rough concept sketches until I settled on an idea that I was inspired to pursue—one that would present opportunities for new methods-of-make, and functional complexity. From here, I made an itemized list of functions that I wanted my product to include and referenced this to create a more refined concept sketch.
Iteration
I used my initial concept sketch to create more refined linework in Fusion 360, that would enable accurate and rapid prototyping. With this linework, I laser-cut all of the components in construction paper to perform fit tests. This allowed me to make tweaks to the linework before moving into 3D modeling. My next step was to add volume to the vector art I had created using extrude, loft, and sweep functions. Now that all of the components had volume, I 3D-printed a second prototype from drafting resin to perform final fit-testing before sending my files off to Shapeways for binder jetting. These final components needed many hours of refinement, as the finish that was left by the binder-jetting process was very rough and inconsistent. This involved Dremel work, hand sanding, and polishing in order to achieve a brushed-metal finish. Finally, I cut and shaped the walnut scales with a table saw and a Dremel, and assembled the knife with epoxy and stainless steel pins.
