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Michael Marchev
03

Fully assembledSeptember 2025 – December 2025

Generate Product Development Studio logo

Upcycling fabric scraps into beads that can be used in jewelry designs or sold wholesale.

Role
Mechanical Engineer
Organization
Generate Product Development Studio
Timeline
September 2025 – December 2025
Tools
Onshape, SLA resin, FDM + heat-set inserts, Tool steel (Xometry), Lead screw + linear rail, 8020 frame
Team
Generate product-development team
Project type
Product Development · Sustainability · Automation / Motion Systems · Tooling · Additive Manufacturing
Render of the Sageware machine: a rounded pink enclosure with a pull-out fabric insertion tray, a small LCD screen, hinged collection doors at the front and removable side panels.
03.0 — SYSTEMExternal View of Sageware

Specifications

Process
Heating, molding, cutting, and dispensing
Input
Two fabric layers with a PC-ABS hot glue sheet sandwiched between them
Heating
Heated plate maintained at approximately 90°C
Bead
Five-pointed flower, cut around a molded dome
Cutting stamp
Custom-machined hard tool steel, five flower-shaped blades
Jig and cutting board
SLA resin
Stamp actuation
Lead screw at one end, linear rail on the other

Focus areas

  • Clean, consistent cuts
  • Repeatability
  • Tolerance stackup
  • Machining cost
  • Product Development
  • Sustainability
  • Automation / Motion Systems
01

System

Sageware’s process consists of four steps: heating, molding, cutting, and dispensing.

The assembled Sageware machine on a workshop bench: a pink and white enclosure with an LCD screen, a fabric insertion tray and collection doors.
03.1 — ASSEMBLEDThe assembled machine.
Render of the machine without its enclosure: stepper motors, the slanted insertion plate, the cutting stamp's gears and lead screw, belt-driven rollers, and two angled ramps below.
03.2 — INTERNAL ARCHITECTUREInternal Architecture
02

Cutting

The heart of the cutting subsystem is a custom-machined steel stamp with five flower-shaped blades. For this, hard tool steel was used to ensure retention of a sharp edge with repeated use, requiring minimal service (and keeping cuts cleaner, as the client wanted).

This is fastened to an SLA resin jig for interfacing with power transfer components, reducing the total stock used (and therefore machining cost) when compared with machining the jig together with the stamp as one part. The jig/insert assembly is actuated vertically by a lead screw at one end, and fastened by a linear rail on the other.

A steel bar with five flower-shaped cutting blades lying on its dimensioned engineering drawing.
03.3 — STAMP AND DRAWINGThe machined steel stamp on its drawing.
The machined steel stamp on a white bench: a bar with five flower-shaped blades along its length.
03.4 — STAMPFive flower-shaped blades.
CAD of the cutting subsystem: a lead screw and gear drive at one end, a linear rail at the other, and a stamp jig carrying five flower-shaped blades above a cutting plate.
03.5 — CUTTING SUBSYSTEMCutting Subsystem Whole View
The cutting subsystem assembled in its aluminium extrusion frame, with the stamp carried on a lead screw at one end, above the machine's electronics.
03.6 — AS BUILTThe cutting subsystem in the frame.

Next project

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Let’s talk.

Open to co-op, internship and project conversations in mechanical design, product development and R&D.

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Based in
Boston, MA