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PROJECT GALLERY

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Selection of recent work for scientific and precision machining projects

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Battery Holder For Neutron Imaging
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Pouch Cell Holder

PhD researcher Isabel Antony, based in Diamond Light Source, Oxford, commissioned Minor Detail’s Streamline Beamtime services to design and manufacture a sample environment (holder) for her research on standard lithium-ion pouch cell batteries.

 

This modular design was optimised for neutron imaging at ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, also located in Oxford. It enables high-resolution data, quick sample replacement, and in-situ electrochemistry. It was manufactured from  PTFE, Titanium, and Aluminium materials that won’t stay radioactive, causing downtime during the beamtime. 

 

 

Year: 2024

Material: PTFE · Titanium · Aluminium

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Photometer Prototype Instrument
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Kinematic Optical Mount for a Photometer
Mechanical Drawings - Photometer

Photometer Prototype Instrument

This instrument was designed and made for Dr John Hales, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the UCL Department of Biochemical Engineering. 

 

Its purpose is to test new analytical technologies for characterising biopharmaceutical products. This compact prototype holds four unique laser mirrors, which can be finely adjusted to sub-micron resolution with the turn of custom micrometre screws and checked by digital linear encoders.

Year: 2022

Material: Glass Optics · Stainless Steel · Copper · Acetal

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Microfluidic Device Moulds
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Molds for Microfluidics Devices

Two aluminium moulds were commissioned by the Zayed Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children. 

 

The moulds are used to create optically clear PDMS casts that serve as microfluidic devices for cell and gene therapy research.

The multi-part mould design allows easy cleaning and maintenance and the ability to repolish the intricate internal features.

Year: 2024

Material: Aluminium · Acrylic · Stainless Steel Hardware

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Cell for Electrochemical Engineering

In partnership with Streamline Beamtime, the design and construction of this 4.2 mm in diameter active area cell were commissioned by UCL’s Electrochemical Innovation Lab. It is part of a research project led by Yue Wen and Iain Malone, who are studying AEM water electrolysis for hydrogen production used in renewable energy storage systems.

Year: 2023

Material: PEEK · Stainless Steel · Titanium · Rubber

Solid State Battery Holder
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Neutron Computed Tomography Cell

This assembly was designed for a neutron tomography experiment conducted at Institut Laue–Langevin (ILL)’s nuclear facility in Grenoble, France. Neutron tomography is used to create a high-resolution 3D model of an object’s internal structure, typically lithium-ion batteries.

 

The assembly works as a custom fixture that holds interchangeable samples (in this case, 2mm diameter by 0.5mm thick battery cells). The experiment will reveal how solid-state battery cells decay, helping the scientists understand internal crack formations and changes in porosity.

 

It compresses the samples firmly at a specific height while allowing them to rotate during the scanning process. The shape of the white PTFE C frame is relieved, exposing the samples just a few millimetres away from the face of the detector. The two faces of the cell are electrically insulated, and cable leads can be fixed on each titanium tab for conductivity tests. There are eight M4 grub screws to fine-tune the runout and tilt.

Year: 2023

Material: PTFE · Aluminium · Titanium

Top View
Tom Blough's External Precision Honing Kit
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Front View
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External Honing Kit

Inspired by Tom Blough’s honing kit design, this tool clamps the outside surface of a rotating cylindrical metal part and hones/polishes it without compromising its roundness and straightness. The kit includes a set of three hones so that one can switch among three different grits of abrasive stones during one operation. The case houses extra stones, a stone re-grind fixture, and a custom Allen wrench set.

 

For Burton Legeyt GSD.

Year: 2021

Material: Aluminium · Steel · Bronze · Brass · Abrasives · Cherry Box

Parts of a Chair
Aluminium and Maple Chair
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Joints of a Chair

A Part is an independent element that carries its own material and formal properties. Despite having its own autonomy, a Part can be assembled into a larger whole.

 

A Joint is a connecting mechanism between Parts. There are two kinds of joints in the built ennvironement: joints that are permanent and joints that require third-party elements, such as standardised dismountable hardware. Often, the joint is considered secondary to the overall form or parts.

 

The design of a chair posits a different logic in which the joints and the parts are not exclusive to each other. Joints do not simply connect parts; they become the generator of parts and, therefore, of form. In this logic, they are not secondary but can inform design, construction, and function.

Year: 2016

Material: Aluminium · Canadian Maple · Stainless Steel

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Exhibition Shelving System
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This exhibition presents both chairs designed by Harvard Graduate School of Design students and, with the seminar’s ethic of inclusion, those designed by influential creatives outside the GSD community. Each chair is explicit in their portrayal of polemical form making. Both groups’ work presents a variety of conversations and influences indicative of today’s accelerated sharing of ideas, where divergent camps quickly hybridize and mutate into new streams. The exhibition underscores the disciplinary necessity of cultivating and honing theoretical positions as a crucial stage that contextualizes these new inclusionary formal practices. In underscoring the importance of both discursive and representational modes of design, the exhibition of each chair borrows from Joseph Kosuth’s template, One and Three Chairs, whereby each designer presents their chair in three divergent forms: a 1:6 physical model, a drawing/image, and a conceptual statement.
This exhibition presents both chairs designed by Harvard Graduate School of Design students and, with the seminar’s ethic of inclusion, those designed by influential creatives outside the GSD community. Each chair is explicit in their portrayal of polemical form making. Both groups’ work presents a variety of conversations and influences indicative of today’s accelerated sharing of ideas, where divergent camps quickly hybridize and mutate into new streams. The exhibition underscores the disciplinary necessity of cultivating and honing theoretical positions as a crucial stage that contextualizes these new inclusionary formal practices. In underscoring the importance of both discursive and representational modes of design, the exhibition of each chair borrows from Joseph Kosuth’s template, One and Three Chairs, whereby each designer presents their chair in three divergent forms: a 1:6 physical model, a drawing/image, and a conceptual statement.
This exhibition presents both chairs designed by Harvard Graduate School of Design students and, with the seminar’s ethic of inclusion, those designed by influential creatives outside the GSD community. Each chair is explicit in their portrayal of polemical form making. Both groups’ work presents a variety of conversations and influences indicative of today’s accelerated sharing of ideas, where divergent camps quickly hybridize and mutate into new streams. The exhibition underscores the disciplinary necessity of cultivating and honing theoretical positions as a crucial stage that contextualizes these new inclusionary formal practices. In underscoring the importance of both discursive and representational modes of design, the exhibition of each chair borrows from Joseph Kosuth’s template, One and Three Chairs, whereby each designer presents their chair in three divergent forms: a 1:6 physical model, a drawing/image, and a conceptual statement.
This exhibition presents both chairs designed by Harvard Graduate School of Design students and, with the seminar’s ethic of inclusion, those designed by influential creatives outside the GSD community. Each chair is explicit in their portrayal of polemical form making. Both groups’ work presents a variety of conversations and influences indicative of today’s accelerated sharing of ideas, where divergent camps quickly hybridize and mutate into new streams. The exhibition underscores the disciplinary necessity of cultivating and honing theoretical positions as a crucial stage that contextualizes these new inclusionary formal practices. In underscoring the importance of both discursive and representational modes of design, the exhibition of each chair borrows from Joseph Kosuth’s template, One and Three Chairs, whereby each designer presents their chair in three divergent forms: a 1:6 physical model, a drawing/image, and a conceptual statement.

Exhibition Shelving

Modular light-weight display shelving for “Style Worry” exhibition at Harvard Graduate School of Design.

 

9-Module / 2-Tier Unit Dimensions:

18 feet long (550 cm)

2 feet tall (60 cm)

1 foot deep (30 cm)

 

Flat packs in a box

24 x 12 x 8 inches (60 x 30 x 20 cm)

Year: 2019

Material: Aluminium · Stainless Steel · Acrylic

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Oak Painting Frame

Exhibition Shelving

A double-sided painting stand for Yuqiao Guo’s luminous day and night paintings commissioned by Civil Architecture for the Doha Design Biennial 2024.

The solid oak stand was designed to pack flat in a shipping crate not much larger than the paintings.

Year: 2024

Material: Oak · Steel Hardware