February show and tell

My most recently completed mosaic work. Edwards: Limestone over gold leaf on wood. 48”x 60”

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That is fantastic!

As always, it would be great if y’all wanted to share pictures of your projects. Special call out for pictures of shop improvements!

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I am up for sharing. Which also leads me to wonder if there is an instagram hashtag hackerspace people use anywhere? I’m not really a social media person overall - but have been using instagram to log my stuff.

My son and I have been learning TIG welding up at ATX… nothing to show there yet. I am personally working on learning bronze casting and patination techniques… did this owl the other day:

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I got a Elegoo resin printer recently to make parts, tools and jigs. The learning curve wasn’t too bad for it but it’s taken a while to wrap my head around Fusion360. Thooks was the challenge I wanted to tackle.

It has precise tolerances even while it has an organic shape. I’ve been making these in wood as well - about 5.1" long but I’ve been challenged to get My CNC machine to over cut the edge to minimize sanding and get a consistent profile without too much trouble. Too much sanding so far but getting better.

The CAD design is easier to tweak to adjust the geometry - like adding a hole for a necklace cord. Easy to scale in the slicer but the detail starts to close up when it gets small

I needed some metric drills and this set was pretty inexpensive but was shipped in a blister pack. This drill caddie might be adapted to other tools in the shop.


The rubber band is easy to replace. Hollow underneath. The ABS like resin is really strong and easy to use. 13 bits and 3 slots for drivers.

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Very cool… I played with fusion360 a couple years ago - about to pick it up again to apply to this metal casting stuff. Seemed like a super powerful, if not esoteric, tool…

have you done any break tests to determine load limits on the resin hooks?

#atxhackerspace

Here is my 2020 Uneasy Chair

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Hey thanks for asking that question. I wasn’t sure how they would hold up but I’m pretty impressed with this resin. It is Elegoo water soluble resin. Here are two Thooks hanging on a 2mm necklace cord from Amazon.

The weight is my cordless drill

I pulled on it harder than the weight of the drill. No damage.
Each Thooks is 38mm long. They hook together aligning them a certain way and with a twist are hooked or unhooked. No physical effort is involved.

I also 3D printed some bead-like objects (since we are talking about putting jewelry making tools in the space). Extremely light weight.

Closeup #1

Closeup #2

Thooks and beads closeup

The Elegoo resin printer does a good job printing beads. The process is more efficient than a filament printer because each slice takes less than 3 seconds regardless of the size of the item or the number of items being printing. These plastic ones can be spray painted or apply any outrageous nail polish.

That pale celadon green resin is some white resin with a tiny smidgen of Smooth-on opaque blue, green and yellow.

Beads can be designed on pretty much any CAD program that can produce an STL file. The technology to do investment casting (lost wax) is well established. 3D printers can print in wax or other filaments suitable for investment casting.

There are white metals having a melting temperatures between 300 to 900 degrees. White Metal alloys are generally made up of Antimony , Tin , Cadmium , Bismuth , and Zinc , though which ones being used vary based on use, plated with precious metal or apply a patina.

One of many suppliers offering different alloys