DESIGNS BY PHIL, LLC

I then finally after being told to for months, put up donation links. I did get 1 or 2 donations (thank you!!!). Then I joined a Facebook group called CNC Router tips. I spent months helping people there, sharing links to my tips pages when they were relevant. I did that for months. People were grateful. Then one day, the owner of the group (we'll just call him Billy Boy) told me that I couldn't help anymore because My website had the donation links (which at that point, only ever got one donation), and a link to my Etsy shop (which only contained my signs I sell)... He told me I was a profiteer only in it for the money. I explained to him that I wasn't and how silly it sounded that I would be trying to sell CNC operators my signs. He kicked me out of the group. Me not ever like being called a lair decided if I was going to be accused of something, I'd at least make it partially true and start selling some of my 3D models. I figured that way, if people want to donate for all the time I spend helping people, they at least get something out of it. So I guess I owe Billy Boy a thank you for pushing me to sell stuff.

Ending Support for Inventables as a company, not the X-Carve community!

I started gathering my knowledge and putting it in a post on inventable to make it easier to find and organize for helping others. Up to this point, I still didn't sell anything to anyone in the CNC world, just signs to customers. I decided to move everything to my website for helping my brothers and sisters in the CNC world.

I originally bought the X-carve to add to my lighting fixtures. After 2 years and not selling any, I needed to up the game. I figured I'd be carving things that would go on my fixtures. In trying to learn the software, I started carving some signs for my son and friends kids. I posted pictures and immediately had friends and family coming out of the wood work (pun intended) saying they would like signs. That was the beginning of the end of Glass Bottle Lighting Company and what gave birth to Designs by Phil, LLC. Fast forward another 2 years and I learned a ton, figured out a ton, and shared a ton. I started helping others. I enjoyed it. never took a dime. People kept telling me I should work for inventables, but sorry, I only like to visit Chicago.

Inventables is much like the current executives at Harley Davidson. Completely out of touch with their customer base.

Harley decided to invite Elton john to headline at the reunion instead of kid rock. When I think of a Harley Davidson owner, I don't think of a pink boa and high heels on a man.

Harley decided to ship work overseas. When I think Harley Davidson, I don't think about made in china, I think 100% American made.

When inventables started to ignore the customers and charge for crappy v carving that wasn't ready, they lost their way. The customers wanted open source. Give to the community and get back more. That's what drew me into inventables and the x-carve. In the past year, they decided to abandon that path. Outsource the x-controller to the cheapest bidder. Quality control has gone down the drain. R.I.P. inventables

But like a Harley Davidson, I still love my x-carve. Not because of the company who sold it to me, but because of the community that WE, the customers, made. We hold true to the original idea of an open source CNC machine, ever changing, advancing, and improving. So I will ALWAYS support OUR community. But the company that has strayed so far from its original path is no longer the source of the community. Just another supplier who doesn't understand their customers. 

The New Journey

Thank You For Your Continuing Support!

I still love helping people! That is still my goal. But I also love fabrication and 3D modeling. I will continue to try and come up with new models and plans that can elevate your creations and upgrades for the X-Carve. I can't thank you enough for my growth and success!

of clumsiness. A perfect match! We have one

son and one daughter! I can't imagine life any different.

off with a couple of coats of spray paint and it didn't look half bad! I started thinking about how I could make one faster and better. Then I thought "maybe I could finally have that thing I've always wanted. Something to that I designed to share with others!". I've always been trying to invent things. Create art. And mostly out of metal. I started making a rolling tool strong enough to handle the abuse. I made welding jigs and alignment jigs. Then I thought about the paint. I needed something strong. Something that would last a lifetime. Powder Coating! But I needed an oven to cure it. I had an old Coke vending machine that stopped working and turned it into a curing oven!

Like I said, I made my first lighting fixture while working at the hotrod shop, but that isn't what set off my obsession with creating lighting fixtures. It was getting close to my wife's birthday and she said she saw a Coca-Cola chandelier online that was really expensive but was wondering if I could make one like it for her. My wife and I are huge Coca-Cola collectors. Even our Kitchen has one wall painted Coca-Cola red! I took a look at this chandelier and decided I could make it much cheaper. I made up my plans and started to it. I made it with an inadequate planetary ring roller and eye balled the main hoop round. Man did I get lucky! It was fairly round anyways. I finished the fixture

The Start of Something

Fast forward to 2009 and I married my high school sweetheart! She is a nurse and I am a mechanical designer/ fabricator with a bit (ok, more than a bit)

That introduced me to the world of welding! Through out the years I would graduate to working on cars. I spent 5 years working as a fabricator at the Aldino Kit Car Company. I made my first lighting fixture there. Little did I know that several years later, things would be set in motion to start my own company creating light fixtures! It also should be noted that I come from a family of engineers and designers. I started out at Nordberg Mining making detail drawings for mobile rock crushing machines. Now I design parts for the largest electric mining shovels in the world!

I've always been into designing and building things. As a kid it was Lincoln Logs, Legos, & forts. As I got older I got into building more complex things. Then came the day when my dad, brother, & I built a go-kart out of the steel railing from our old front porch!

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