My latest upcycling 3D Printing project is a Turkey Centerpiece feature 24 of my mother’s wine corks. This is my first model uploaded to Prusa Printers! https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/…
3:53 – Slicing Snippet (with Cura) – Don’t forget the hypotenuse of a triangle is greater than its parts. Practical application – try rotate for fitting larger parts. 4:57 – Blender Bit – By default Blender rotates around an object’s origin (usually the center of mass). You can change either your object’s origin or the pivot point to better control your rotations.
When printing the head, this is where I do my color switches: 0 – 25mm – Brown (in 0.25 mm layers) 25 – 25.40 – White (in 0.10mm layers) 25.40 – 25.80 – Black (in 0.10 mm layers) 25.80 – 26.20 – Orange (in 0.10 layers) 26.20 – End – Burgundy (in 0.10 layers)
This year for my fifth Maker Faire Nova, I wanted to combine crafting and 3D Printing. I decided to make a giant 3 foot wide Great Blue Heron. The blank panels are 12 3D Printed pieces and all the colors were comprised of 130 hand-stitched Plastic Canvas panels. I am so in love with the final result and look forward to sharing it in June!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR5SYdvIz_E
The 3D Modeling was done in Blender. I’m still working in Blender 2.78. I really do need to check out the beta version.
Most of the design work was done with Bezier Curves. Bezier curves are discussed in detail in the second chapter of “Blender 3D Printed by Example”*. I also did a talk on this topic at Northern Virginia Community College. The slides with step by step screenshots are at: https://www.slideshare.net/VickyTGAW/…
*If you do want to buy my book, please consider supporting another member of our 3D Printing community by using their Amazon Affiliate Link.
I translated my Heron design to 3D Printed outlines by using Blender’s Inset feature. Heads up– when you type in specific dimensions for Inset, those dimensions are for your object when it is at the 1:1:1 scale. The best practice is to first go to Object-Apply-Scale to tell Blender your object’s current dimensions are that 1:1:1 scale and THEN do your insets. For my outlines, I went with a thickness of 2mm. However, if you are hoping your piece supports itself, you’ll want to go thicker.
For printing, I split my outlines into 12 pieces with a maximum dimension of 280mm x 280mm. I believe We The Builders uses NetFabb to break up their community builds. In my case, I used the Boolean Intersection modifier in Blender.
The 3D Printed pieces also served as my templates for cutting the plastic canvas.
Tip– use colored Sharpies to help identify the pieces. Corollary tip – Invest in a white Sharpie for white pieces. When I used pink, it bleed all over my beautiful heron white.
Stitching was a THREE generation effort. Thank you to my Mom, my oldest son (and his classmate Gio!), and my husband for each tackling a panel.
Assembly was made MUCH easier thanks to a purchase of a custom frame from American Frame. I went with a frame with a 3/4″ rabbet height to accomodate the thickness of the 3D print, the plastic canvas, and the stitching. The outlines were attached by a Gorilla Super Glue Gel and black electrical tape. The needlework panels were attached with a glue gun. I spent a lot of time on the floor with this project. 🙂
I hope to see some of you at Maker Faire Nova. If not, perhaps the East Coast Rep Rap Festival which is October 12th-13th, 2019 in Bel Air, Maryland. Thanks for watching!
Now that Maker Faire Nova is behind me, I am aiming to get my Upcycling models up and available to download for the community. This model preexisted my recent Maker Faire Nova efforts. I designed this Cork Kitty as a companion piece to EHM’s Cork Puppy back in the summer of 2015. They have been popular at Craft Fairs and black cats are particularly popular at Halloween.
For me, I found the model to be an unintimidating way to ease into painting prints. The raised details of the face lend themselves well to painting. I find brushes geared for miniature painting to work well. I use Majestic Royal and Langnickel Short Handle Paint Brush Set, Detail, 11-Piece (Affiliate link).
I typically make the eyes green and the nose and ears pink. You can add paint to the whiskers. A dark grey looks particularly striking on black cats. I have done custom orders on Etsy where we mimick the markings to real cats.
I had a friend put a slice through the cork to hold labels describing all the dishes at a Halloween party.
A Friend Used a Set of Black Cats as Buffet Labels for a Halloween Pot Luck
Although they are made from wine corks, I have found them to have appeal to children. They love playing for them! Happy making!
Long before I even heard of 3D Printing, one of my hobbies was geocaching! Admittedly, I haven’t done it much recently (we did do a couple caches with the boys last summer), but it is still near and dear to my heart.
Shapeways is offering FREE shipping this weekend (October 3rd and 4th, 2015). Know what that means? You can get my Glowing Cthulhu Jack-O-Lantern or my moving part Dial-O-Lantern (pick between 27 face combinations) in time for Halloween… and with FREE shipping.
Glowing Cthulhu Pumpkin
Moving Part – Dial-O-Lantern
Happy Shopping! : )
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