Tour of my Simplify3D Settings – As Of January 2016

January 30, 2016 VickyTGAW 2 Comments

Another post inspired by a Twitter conversation!

Here’s a quick tour of my Slicer Settings for the MakerGear M2 (v3b Hot End) for my PLA/PHA.

Hat Tip – A lot of my settings, especially my speed settings, all stem from Ed Nisley’s Settings for the Bridge Calibration Tool. His settings are for Slic3r. I did my best interpretation to convert them over when I started using Simplify3D. My notes and screenshots of trying to match things up are on Flickr at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tgaw/albums/72157656224789835

Okay without further ado.

Extruder Tab

Nozzle Diameter
0.35 – To match my current nozzle.

Extrusion Width
Typically– 0.35. I have used the “Auto” which sets to 0.42 without issue.

Exception– In the case of super thin details I have decreased that to 0.34 so the printer will pick them up. An example is a Les Paul Slash Guitar I was working on. At 0.35, the strings were not picked up, but when I changed the Extrusion Width to 0.34, it picked them up.

Ooze Control
I have not actually played with those settings a lot. They are likely the stock settings from the MakerGear M2 profile for Simplify3D

Layer Tab

Primary Layer Height
I print anywhere from 0.10 to 0.25. It depends on the projects. Stuff like Cork Kitties, I’m good at 0.25. My multi-colored birds, I want the details to be as close to the base bird as I can, so I print those at 0.10.

Top Solid Layers
I usually keep this at 3.

Exception- If I’m working on a piece where the primary focus of it is going to be on the very top (such as the Les Paul Slash Guitar), I will up the Top Solid Layers, sometimes up to 10 (so 1mm at 0.10mm layer heights). This is particularly important if I am using low or no infill. An overkill example is below, but you can see how the combination of Top Solid Layers and Infill can have an impact.

An illustration of how infill & top layer settings can make a big difference in #3DPrinting. The top example- 40% infill with 15 solid layers at top. The bottom example, 10% infill with 3 solid layers at top.

A photo posted by Vicky Somma (@vickytgaw) on Jun 16, 2015 at 5:51pm PDT

Bottom Solid Layers
I usually keep this at 3

Exception – I have Standing Cancer Ribbon that I print with extra solid layers at the bottom in an attempt to weigh the legs down more. (I have no evidence that is necessary- it worked the first time so I kept doing it)

Outline Perimeter Shells
Typically I keep this at 3.

Exception – If I’m doing something with bronzeFill that I expect to do extra sanding, I up this to 5. (Hat Tip, Barnacles Nerdgasm)

Exception – If I have engraved Text at the top of my piece, I will sometimes lower the perimeters to 1 as it makes the text more crisp.

Outline Direction

Inside-Out – I believe this is the default and it helps with overhangs quite a bit. Because it is starting from the inside, you are more likely to have something underneath it from the layer before to support your new layer. So if it prints inside out, it has a good base before getting to the overhang areas. An example is the 3D Hubs Marvin. If you look at the curvature on his butt. If the first perimeter is printing on the inside, there is definitely something there for it to print on top of.

First Layer Height
With right now how my bed and Z-End Stop is setup, I am having great results with a First Layer Height of 0.10. So this percentage is all determined by my Primary Layer Height.
If I’m printing at 0.10 layers, I use 100%
If I’m printing at 0.20 layers, I use 50%
If I’m printing at 0.25 layers, I use 40%, etc.

First Layer Width
Converting Ed Nisley’s Settings from Slic3r, I came up with 93%.

First Layer Speed
This I keep at 30%. I believe that also stemmed from my Slic3r settings.

Start Points
I use Optimize Starting Points for Fastest Printing Speed. This I stumbled upon trying to get rid of some pimples and oozing on some prints. Once I checked this, my problems disappeared. I suspect this could also be addressed with Retraction Settings but right now, this solution is working great for me.

My #3DPrinting Victory of the day – finding the right settings to get rid of these retraction blobs. Success!

A photo posted by Vicky Somma (@vickytgaw) on Oct 20, 2015 at 7:10pm PDT

Temperatures

Primary Extruder
I use 210 for all my ColorFabb PLA/PHA

For my MakerGear PLA (my White, Orange, Silver, Black, Purple), I will often use 215, but will sometimes drop that down to 210 if I’m doing something with a lot of overhangs.

BronzeFill and GlowFill I typically use 210.

Heated Bed
Get this. I’m in love with printing on a cool bed on painters tape (And I have that luxury with the materials I have been working with). So I have that set to 0.

Cooling

Speed Overrides
When I was trying to print 3D Benchy, I noted my results in Simplify3D were not as good as my original prints in Slic3r. I went back and reviewed my Slic3r settings and found a whole section I had skipped over because it looked waaay too intimidating.

Now if I am working with a print with lots of overhangs or small details that will need to cool, I will check “Adjust printing speed for layers below” and I set it to 30 (down from 60). I also give it way more leeway with how slow it can go– I set that to 10%.

I often will uncheck this setting if my printer is really flat and straight forward and really doesn’t need extra time to cool before starting the next layer.

Other

For my printing speeds, it is all my calculations of my old Slic3r settings that I based off of Ed Nisley.

Default Printing Speed
4800.00 mm/min (which is 80mm/sec)

Bridge Speed Multiplier
I set to 125% to get it up to 100mm/sec.

Conclusion
And there you have it. A tour of my settings. Areas where I think there can be some improvement– I do have a model that is subject to some stringing, so I may want to play with lower printing speeds.

Stringing In the Gazebo

And it is possible I can improve my retraction settings, but like I said above, with my Starting Point settings, that issue has not been bothering me.

Slicing

Quickie Tutorial – Getting the Extruder To Run Some Filament Before a Print

January 30, 2016 VickyTGAW 2 Comments

I butted into a conversation in Twitter today (That’s socially acceptable right? I hear it’s the cocktail party of the Internet) and the question came up how to get the Maker Gear M2 to run some filament before the print.

Well, since I do a lot of material changes within prints, that is something I do know how to do.

Simplify3D – Jog Controls
You can tell your printer to do all sorts of things in the Machine Control Panel section of Simplify3D. For that, you would:

Click on Tools->Machine Control Panel.
And then you can go to the Jog Controls Tab.
There is an Extrude section, where you can tell the printer to extrude out 0.1mm (tiny, tiny!), 1mm, 10mm, 100mm. I am typically using the 10 or the 100 button.

Tip: If you already have a print on the bed, I put a piece of paper over it so it doesn’t get messed up with the extruded filament.

Gotcha: The printer has some built in safeguards– it won’t do a “Cold Extrude”. It won’t extrude unless the nozzle is heated up. If you are hitting those Extrude buttons and the printer is not listening to you, it may be that it isn’t heated up yet. (The G-Code command M302 supposedly turns off the Cold Extrude safeguard, but I have never tried it)

Simplify3D – Custom Starting Script G-Code

Simplify3D allows you to set up custom code for various stages of your print, including the start up. To edit those, you would:

Double click on your setting profile in the bottom left hand corner
Click on the Scripts tab
Click on the Starting Script tab

For all my simple prints, I use the stock Starting Scripts that came with the Simplify3D Default Profile for the MakerGear M2 (24V vb3 Hot End) (I do customizations for my multistep prints)

M108 S255 ; turn on M2 fans
G28 ; home all axes
G1 Y50 Z0.3 F9600 ; move forward to avoid binder clips
G1 X205 Z10 ; move off platform
G1 Z0.4 ; position nozzle
G92 E0 ; zero extruder
G1 E25 F225 ; purge nozzle
G92 E0 ; zero extruder
G1 X190 Z0.1 E1.0 F1200 ; slow wipe
G1 X180 Z0.25 ; lift

Simplify3D -G-Code Via Communication Tab
Want to be a little more hard code than the Machine Control Panel tab, but don’t want to commit to a change to your Starting Script? You can also send direct G-Code commands to your printer by:

Going to Tools->Machine Control Panel
Clicking on the Communication tab
Typing stuff in the text box in the bottom and hit Send.

Tip: A good reference for G-Code syntax is at: http://reprap.org/wiki/G-code

Gotcha: The commands are CASE sensitive. m107, for example will not turn off my cooling fan, but M107 will. : )

3D Printing

Print Diary – Anglerfish in colorFabb BronzeFill and GlowFill

December 25, 2015 VickyTGAW 1 Comment

After months of craft shows and custom orders, my very last design and print for 2015 was something for me! As soon as I received my first spool of ColorFabb GlowFill, I wanted to do an anglerfish. I’m almost done with that roll, so this seemed to be the time. And as luck would have it, PrintedSolid and reddit were running a mixed material use contest. Destiny! I designed and printed my anglerfish in BronzeFill and GlowFill on my MakerGear M2. The GlowFill parts were actually inserted into the fish and sealed in as the BronzeFill printed.

Tada! Anglerfish!

As you may expect, the GlowFill parts glow in the dark and the blacklight.

Glowing Anglerfish

Material Choices
I chose two materials for my anglerfish, both were mainly selected for aesthetic reasons:

colorFabb BronzeFill – The bulk of my print was in bronzeFill. To me, bronzeFill elevates designs. It’s heavy, so it feels expensive. It gets a sheen with sanding so it also looks expensive. I have found it to be a forgiving material as it is so easy to sand afterwards and redeem. I only had time for one print of my design before leaving for vacation. I needed a forgiving material. : ) I’ve also seen it bridge and do overhangs well, so I knew it was a good fit for my fish.
Semantics also play a little bit of a role. Bronze pulls with it connotations of the Bronze Age– gladiators and warriors. Bronze is a material of badasses. Anglerfish withstand immense pressures down there at the bottom of the ocean. They warrant a badass material.
colorFabb GlowFill – And GlowFill was a no brainer. To really do justice to an anglerfish, I needed him to glow. : )

Design
I designed my angerfish in Blender. I designed cavities and supports inside the fish to hold our GlowFill pieces. That way, I could insert the pieces and let the rest of the print seal them in.

Model in Blender

Cavities Inside the Fish to Hold GlowFill Details.

So for example, the glowing eye detail. Inside the head of the fish, I have a little rectangular holder to keep that detail in place. I wanted the pupil of the eyes to remain dark, however, so that glowing eye detail had a circle cut out so the BronzeFill behind it could show through.

A View To Show the Relationship of How the GlowFill Eye Would Be Supported

Printing – GlowFill
I printed all the GlowFill pieces first. Very straight forward– 0.25mm layers, nothing super special.

Printing – BronzeFill
BronzeFill is where the thinking came in. I still printed at 0.25mm layers. Using Simplify3D, I set up nine separate processes for the BronzeFill. At the end of each process, the print would stop, the Z bed would drop 100mm allowing me to insert in the appropriate GlowFill piece(s) before starting the next process.

Preview in Simplify3D, the Blue Lines Illustrate Stopping Points

Using Layer Modifications in Simplify3D

Custom Ending Script in Simplify3D to Just Drop My Bed At the End of the Process

After Eye Detail Was Inserted

I did have a bobble. When I inserted my side panels, I noticed they were a little higher than the BronzeFill layers around it. I thought it would be safe… but it knocked my nozzle and offset the X a bit. The seam you see in the pictures is the product of that shift. Lesson learned — better safe than sorry. : )

The Bobble

I did also end up printing the little dangly do-dad on the top of the fish separately. That was unplanned, but serendipitous as the fish would have been a pain to sand with that delicate detail in the way.

Finishing
I sanded the fish with three separate grades of sand paper and I finished him off with super fine steel wool.

Lessons
I only had time for one print and I do have adjustments I would make for my next run. First off– the teeth are not worth installing during the print. It was a lot of stops in the print to insert the teeth and the sanding. My gawd, the sanding. Those teeth were just a nuisance during sanding. I did get a little thrill each time I installed a tooth and had the print seal it in, but it wasn’t worth it. Next time, I’m just going to glue the teeth in after the fact.

Secondly, I learned to decrease the height of those side GlowFill panels slightly so I don’t get my nozzle knocked. : )

Even with my little bobble, I am thrilled with my anglerfish. Love!

I Did It!

More photos of my Anglerfish and its process can be found on my Flickr site.

Business

Event Recap – Occoquan River Communities’ Winterfest

December 15, 2015 VickyTGAW 2 Comments

Greetings All! It’s been a busy fall, full of custom design orders and events. My last event for 2015 was the Holiday Arts Market at Tackett’s Mill. It was part of a large Winterfest organized by the Occoquan River Communities.

Lesson: It Doesn’t Hurt to Ask
By the time I heard about the Holiday Arts Market, it was well past their submission date. I went ahead and sent an email to the organizer to see if they still happened to have openings and guess what– they did. Not only that, the booth fee was free. And on top of that, the Holiday Arts Market was in the same building as Santa Claus would be after the parade. I am very thankful they let me into the show so late.

Santa Arrives

Setup
For this show, they did have electricity, so I brought the printer along. They also allowed people to hang things on the wall, so I put all my wreaths and magnets on the wall behind me, allowing me to squish everything else into a single table. I did not show any of my jewelry this show for two reasons– 1) Lack of space and 2) I sold all out of my Helix Heart Pendants the weekend before.

It was refreshing to be in an indoor venue for a change and I didn’t have to tack all my signs down.

The other artists were amazing. I loved their work and even though they have been doing this for so much longer than I, they were all very supportive of me and my work. They made me feel very welcome.

My Setup the Night Before

Big Start
The first half hour of the show was crazy busy. Crazy busy. 67% of all my sales occurred in the first 30 minutes of the show. At one point in time, there was a queue of people lined up waiting to pay.

After that, it did slow down immensely. It gave me a chance to visit with the other artists and my children. As a bonus surprise, my two year old nephew and his parents stopped by for a visit.

My Nephew and My Youngest Son At The Booth

Winners
For this show, the biggest winner was the Cork Kitty! All but one lonely white cat sold.

Cork Kitties – SOLD!

The five Firefly wreath that I secretly hoped no one would buy did get purchased. The fireflies butts glow in the dark and the way they were positioned on the wreath, the glowing makes a star. I will have to make another one.

Firefly Wreath – SOLD!

Cardinals continued to have a strong showing. Hummingbirds and Goldfinches made sales and a big congratulations to the Red-Winged Blackbird who got his real first sale!

First Sale! Red-Winged Blackbird

Virginia is for Wine Lovers bottle stoppers did well as usual as did that Glowing Cthulhu Coaster. Every single show– I sell Glowing Cthulhu Coasters (often to the point of selling out). It still amazes me how well they do.

The Glowing Marine Corps Museum (which I have yet to blog about) did well. The great thing about that product is just two sales covers an entire roll of GlowFill!

My Glowing Ode to The National Museum of the Marine Corps

My two-color holiday napkin rings (another thing I need to blog about) got their first “Craft Show” sell as well.

Napkin Rings – SOLD!

Phew. It was a good day, but at the end of it, I was thankful that was my last show in 2015. The next show on my docket right now isn’t until March. I’m hoping to catch up on my blogging in Q1 2016… and launch my 3D Printing YouTube Channel!

Uncategorized

Marathon Etsy-ing

November 27, 2015 VickyTGAW Leave a comment

Phew. Did some catch up on my Etsy site and got a bunch more products listed this week including:

Bird Christmas Ornaments and Wreaths – for the Nature Lovers on your Christmas list!
The National Museum of the Marine Corp – a special model for a show I did in Quantico, Virginia. The model glows in the dark and can be lit within by LED
Library of Congress Ornament– which scored me a trip to the White House.
Schrodinger’s Cat and Box – It has been a surprise sleeper at the craft shows, so I decided it was Etsy-worthy. 🙂
Breastfeeding Pendants – where my 3D Printing journey began!
Heart Helix Pendants – My current favorite necklace– hearts twisted into a double helix.

Enjoy!

3D Printing

Fun Print – Le FabShop’s Wolverine Claws

November 12, 2015 VickyTGAW Leave a comment

The le FabShop’s Wolverine Claws were making the rounds on the Internet and they looked amazing, but I did not feel compelled to print them. My husband saw them and instantly wanted some… but still I hadn’t quite worked it into my 3D Printing schedule. And then…. The 3D Printed Nerd nonchalantly mentioned in a VLOG that he printed them.

Suddenly I was swayed. And I already have grey filament in my printer from the Fun Police Sheriff’s Badge. It was destiny. So I went ahead and gave it a whirl. This was before The 3D Printing Nerd’s full video on the claws, so I was still blissfully unaware it took 3 tries to get them right. That might have deterred me, but luckily I didn’t see the video yet and luckier, my first print was a huge success.

I printed at 0.25mm layers with 10% infill. The Thingiverse instructions recommend rafts. I forgot to turn rafts on in Simplify3D, BUT knowing the brutal overhang was coming, I did glue stick the absolute heck out of my bed. That was sufficient to keep the claws stuck on the bed. I did have a minor first layer issue, so the very first layer of one of the claws was fused together in my print. I freed that up with Exacto Knife and SHEBAM. We were in business.

Sadly, my husband STILL doesn’t have the wolverine claws he desires. My four year old took one look at those things and yeah, now they are his. : )

Well I *thought* I was printing the Le FabShop Wolverine Claws for my husband, but it's been adopted by my 4yo. #3DPrinting #Xmen http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1093632

A video posted by Vicky Somma (@vickytgaw) on Nov 3, 2015 at 2:41pm PST

It is such an amazing and impressive design. Many thanks to le FabShop for sharing their design!

3D Printing, Print Diary, Slicing

Print Diary – Fun Police Sheriff’s Badge

November 3, 2015 VickyTGAW 1 Comment

A friend of my brother’s passed away last week. He was in his thirties, so it was an unexpected death. Last night, my sister-in-law texted to see how soon I could 3D Print something for the funeral. She wanted a Sheriff’s Badge with one request– that it simply read “Fun Police”.

Thanks to Thingiverse, OpenSCAD, and Simplify3D, I was able to turn around her request fast.

Thingiverse and OpenSCAD
Thingiverse had a lot of Sheriff Badges to choose from. I went with the design by Bichiatari. I liked the standard six star approach and bonus– it was in OpenSCAD, which I taught a class on last June! I used his base code to make some slight alterations:

I made the points of the stars spheres to give it a more three dimensional look.
I changed the font to “Rockwell Extra Bold”. I liked the look of the text and I liked how thick the letters were
And finally, I changed “Sheriff” to “Fun Police”.

Original Model

Simplify3D
Now, when I was done, the points of my stars did extend below the base of the star thanks to the spheres.

I didn’t want to print those sphere bottoms

For my first trial run, I didn’t go to the trouble of making that flat in OpenSCAD. I just flattened the bottom when I sliced in Simplify3D. I simply changed the Z offset, so the bottom part of those spheres were below my build plate, so those parts wouldn’t print. A nice handy trick.

I also felt the proportions were a little off, so I scaled just the height of the object down so it was only 6mm high.

Hack with Simplify3D – Changed my Offset To Lower the Object Down

Rev 2
The first print was okay— and I bet they would have been satisfied with it. I didn’t like how the “E” at the end of “POLICE” printed out and I thought it would be a better use of real estate to make the letters bigger.

The First Print Had a Messed Up E

So I went back into OpenSCAD and made some changes:

I put “FUN” on one line of text and “POLICE” on another
I made the text bigger.
I resized my object down to 4mm high
Finally, I went ahead and chopped off the bottom of those spheres so it would all lay flat

For those interested in the code, the full OpenSCAD code is below.

As far as the second print— I liked it much better. I used the MakerGear Silver PLA filament.

Second Print

OpenSCAD Code
[js]
//I thought the current height was too chunky,
//so scale it down to 4mm high after everything
//else is done
resize([0,0,4])
difference () {

//Rotate the star 30 Degrees, so it is easier to visualize
//and place the text
rotate([0,0,30])
union () {
//The first two cylinders are our star
//3 sided cylinder is a triangle
cylinder(r=40, h=5,$fn=3);
rotate([0,0,180])
cylinder(r=40, h=5,$fn=3);
translate([37,0,2])

//Spheres at each star’s point
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([-37,0,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([-19,33,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([19,33,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([-19,-33,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
translate([19,-33,2])
sphere(r=5, $fn=32);
}

//These cubes are our engraved lines
translate([-23,10,1])
cube ([50,1,4]);
translate([-23,-10,1])
cube ([50,1,4]);

//This is our text for engraving
scale([0.7,0.7,1])
translate([-30,3,1])
linear_extrude([0,0,5])
text(” FUN “, font=”Rockwell Extra Bold”);

scale([0.7,0.7,1])
translate([-30,-9,1])
linear_extrude([0,0,5])
text(“POLICE”, font=”Rockwell Extra Bold”);

//Finally this cube is to cut everything off at the bottom to make it flat
translate([-50,-50,-5])
cube([100,100,5]);
}
[/js]

3D Printing, Etsy

First Thingiverse Remix!

October 22, 2015 VickyTGAW Leave a comment

Last week, thinking about how much I have gained from the generous licensing of Thingiverse designers (such as RosieCampbell, Liz Havlin, EHM), I decided to pay it back a little bit and I made my Glowing Pumpkin Pendant/Pin available on Thingiverse. I even marked it as good for Remix and Commercial use.

A week later, my design has its first Remix! A gentleman from the Ukraine adapted it into a keychain! And interestingly enough, he printed it in a single color… and it looks fantastic!

Just like the Mill House Museum Ornament, I’m glad to see my colored design translates well to a single color! : )

P.S. If you don’t have a printer, I do have prints of the original Glowing Pumpkin Pendant/Pin listed on Etsy.

3D Modeling

Modeling Diary – Occoquan’s Mill House Museum

October 21, 2015 VickyTGAW 1 Comment

After the Occoquan Arts and Craft Fair, I was approached by the Occoquan Business Guild. This holiday season the Virginia Governor’s Mansion is celebrating Virginia’s localities. They invited counties, cities, and towns throughout the state to design an ornament for tree. I was asked to design the Christmas Ornament representing Occoquan!

Originally we discussed a replica of the old Ellicott Mill which was the very first automated mill in Virginia. But, the Mill looked to be particularly ambitious in the timeframe (end of October). So we ultimately decided to do an ornament based on the Mill House, which is a structure that still stands today and is home to Occoquan’s Mill House Museum. The Mill House’s shape seemed like it would aesthetically make a better ornament.

This structure also has an emotional connection to me and my family. My maternal grandmother worked at the Mill House Museum for many years.

I did some sketches and settled on a pretty literal translation of the Mill House. Since the Mill House is a stone structure, I recommended the final print be in Shapeways’ Full Color Sandstone. I felt its stone-like finish would be perfect for the ornament.

Modeling – Base Structure and Details
For modeling, I used some reference photos I took of the building.

The side of the mill with the chimney was tight for me to get pictures, so for that side I also used a reference photo I took of a model by former Council Member Dr. Walbert.

One of the key features I wanted on the ornament was an old Mill Stone laying on the building. For that, I referred to good ole Wikipedia and its article on millstones!

Modeling – Mill House
I did all my work in the free modeling software Blender. The base model, the windows, the door, the brick trim above the windows and the chimney shape all went quickly and were pretty much done with cubes and basic mesh modeling.

Modeling – Physical Textures
And then I had the tricky part. The stone work and the brick work. Now, because we were planning on Full Color Sandstone, I did have the option of doing a UV Map and doing that details just through the colors. But I decided, I really wanted those textures to be actual textures. If we wanted to print the model in bronzeFill or plastic, I wanted the details to translate. I briefly researched Displacement Maps, but with the time clock ticking, I went with an approach I was more comfortable with. (One day I may look back and think, “Dude- you did this the HARD way!”)

All my physical textures I went with a height of 0.5mm. I have found 0.5mm details look good on my MakerGear M2– it’s big enough for the detail to be distinctive, but small enough that the printer doesn’t struggle with overhangs.

Modeling – Bricks
Bricks– I made a small cube as a brick and then used the Array Modifier to make a line of evenly spaced bricks.

After I applied that Array Modifier, I did another! I made one row and offset it a little bit to get the stratified effect of two rows of bricks.

Finally I used the Array Modifier one more time to make a big sheet of bricks!

Modeling – Stones
For the stone work, I was partially a purist. I pulled up a new Blender project and traced out some of the real stones of the Mill House in Bezier Curves. And once I had a good selection, I used that mini sheet of stones to make bigger sheets.

Modeling – Fitting the Brick and Stonework
To fit my stonework and brick work to the actual Mill House, I made little templates of the sides I wanted to work with. I started by making a template of the side I wanted the texture for. This would include window and detail cut outs where I did not want stone or brick. This took me a while to find a process I liked. I finally ended up with ended duplicating any pertinent vertices.

Then I separated them into their own object by going to Mesh->Vertices->Separate->Selection.

I sometimes had to repeat with other objects (such as windows).

Once I had all the relevant vertices, I made a new face of what I wanted stonework for. From there, I used the Boolean Modifier and Intersection to cut my sheet of stonework into…a specifically shaped sheet of stonework.

And I ended up with my final textured piece that I could overlay over my Mill House.

Modeling – Colors
With the Mill House, I didn’t have to create a UV Map for my coloring. I was able to do it all by the Materials tab for my objects.

In a couple of spots, I assigned a different material to specific faces (like grooves in the Mill Stone)

Modeling – Hollowing
To save on material cost I did hollow out my Mill House. It was an easy process– I Inset the bottom face and Extruded up.

Renders and Rework
Originally I did my shingles with an Subdivide, Inset and Extrude technique. It looked fabulous in my Mamie Davis Gazebo Ornament, but I did not like it in my Mill House renders.

I went back and redid the shingles the way I did the bricks (so they were staggered).

I met with my contacts and gave them a tour of the model and the renders and they loved it! The only tweak they had was to add a doorknob.

“That’s it!” I yelled enthusiastically!

The door had been bothering me all week. It just did not look right. As soon as they said doorknob– I knew that was it. That was the missing piece.

Test Prints
One of my concerns was the balance of the ornament would be off or that once printed, I wouldn’t be fond of the size I chose. So I did a test print on the Maker Gear M2. And….. I was in love. Even though my printer did not pick up the window panes and I noticed a few minor issues, I was impressed at how great all the detailing came out on my printer. I am so glad I went to the trouble to make that stonework and brick work physical details instead of just colors. As for balance– it balanced perfectly!

And for fun, I also did a version for myself in ColorFabb bronzeFill.

Final Print
My final print came out a little darker than I expected, but still very identifable as the Mill House. The most important part– the “customer” was thrilled! Phew!

And Now…
And now the ornament makes it way to the Virginia Governor’s Mansion! Exciting!

Business

St. Paul UMC Fall Fair – Recap

October 19, 2015 VickyTGAW Leave a comment

On Saturday, I did a little “mini” show at a nearby church for four hours. Since the booth fee was only $10, that gave me the luxury to do some experimenting with lower prices– particularly with the Cork Kitties and the Cork Puppies! My experiment for this show as setting them up at $2.25 (that’s including the sales tax).

I left my more expensive products at home and only set up one 5′ table. TGAW 3D “Lite”, if you will.

Now, the foot traffic at this show was pretty minimal– I think most of the people there were other vendors, but I still managed regular sales. My sample size is small, but I’m feeling like there was more conversion from admiration to actual purchase. 🙂 Oh, and I sold my very first Standing Cancer Ribbons. Yay!

Other misc observations:

All the sales this time around were cash (At the Occoquan Craft show it was about 60% cash, 40% credit).
If I keep up with the magnet boards, I need a better way to brace them– it flew over in the wind!
Not all glue is equal. I’m still filtering out bird magnets whose magnets are loose. : (

Finally, I discovered there is a perk to a slow show. I got to sneak in some quality time with my boys and it was a fun place to do so. They had a moon bounce, a pumpkin patch… and the local fire station even brought over a fire truck and an ambulance for the kids to explore.

As for grown up stuff, I got to visit with an old classmate from elementary school. We had a lot to catch up on.

It wasn’t an especially lucrative show, but I had a most fabulous time.

Blogging the trials and successes of 3D Modeling, 3D Printing…and trying to make a business out of the whole thing. : )