Tuesday, June 8, 2021

3 D Printing

 Who knew?

I think of myself as a very analogue maker.  Everything I do is pretty much by hand, and takes time.  Whether it is stitching books; stitching my handkerchiefs, setting type, or designing calligraphy layouts; they all take time and the hand of the maker is all over them.

So it was weird that I got excited about the chance to do a workshop on 3 D printing and printing plates to print from.

I did and we did. Barry and I went along to Noosa Library, where with the generosity of the Noosa Council and Noosa RADF grants, we learnt how to make files and print plates.

One of the printers,with purple filament. 


Moving my image onto the base plate in the computer...


In position; but the base plate is big big for my simple image.


So I shrank the base plate.


And then transferred the file to another program to slice it - ie tell the printer which bits to print in a pass; and where the gaps were. I think!


The printer mid-way.


Completed.


Close up


Ta Da.

I still need to file it and dust the muck off it; but tomorrow (Wednesday) we print!


The imagery is a modified version of the fishing sheds in our village of Armadale in Scotland.

Printing here we come!


12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks Irene - it is a nice sort of abstraction of the sheds which I adore!

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  2. this got me wondering about our local library ... sure enough, they have a 3D printer, along with a 3D scanner, a laser cutter and lots of other cool stuff ... sadly, all currently unavailable due to Covid ... which gives me time to contemplate what one might actually do someday with the tools they have

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    1. Oh yes! We discovered a couple of 3 D printers here in Maleny as well and our minds are in overdrive trying to work out how to get it together to work with them. Don might also like some of the options they offer!

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  3. Wow, look forward to seeing the print!

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    1. It is looking good Mo and I think might benefit from a bit of chine colle play looking at the mix of colours on the sheds.

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    2. okay, I confess I had to look up chine colle ... and now I do hope you give it a go and show us what happens!

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    3. I prepared some papers yesterday Liz and might get to print in a wee while...

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  4. F - great subject matter for a 3D printing plate. B

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    1. A nice remembering and I like how the design is them; without trying to be exactly them!

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  5. I'm not into technology much myself and do everything by hand too, but in this case: thumbs up for technology !

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    1. Yes indeed! The plates could work well for embossing too I think...and you could also use them for calligraphy; flip the image and you could print. Lots of places to go and things to play with still!

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