One of the tools available to, but not at, Norton Men’s Shed is a 3-D printer. It uses filament to weave 3D objects.
Why not experiment with a plaque of the Shed logo. Below is the first attempt. The text over the door has not reproduced well but version two will soon be on the way.
Not bad for a first attempt.
Just adding here photos of the Snapmaker A350 kit used.
Up-Down, In-Out, Left-Right are the moves. The spool of filament (black) feeds into the nozzle at 200C. The horizontal bed is heated to 70C. It’s not quick! The 60mm logo took about an hour as layer upon layer of plastic was finely extruded.
It is black. A trick of flash photography makes the object appear transparent. There are different colour filaments purchasable.
There are libraries of predesigned items available online generally. Some are to make useful gadgets such as a device to find the centre of a piece of wood to be turned on the lathe. Len, the Aussie friend, is going to get a 3D printed plaque of Norton Men’s Shed. The design will be sent by email attachment to Graham’s son in Australia who will print it and send it to Len through the post. Apparently a printer is on the wish list of Len’s Labrador Shed.
Origins
It’s a nice toy to play with but it has serious intent. It goes back well into last century when the US Navy realised that to carry spares of everything on a naval ship was a nightmare. Better to manufacture on demand with designs and manufacturing instructions downloaded over the internet and produced on board with equipment similar in principle to that which we are playing with but on a much grander scale! For this to happen, information standards were needed so that humans and different machines could “communicate”. It was a contribution to today’s evolving virtual world.ma
More pieces manufactured
This is a version 2 of the logo to be printed. There’s a tree-shaped hole.
Aussie grandson (ma e in the UK!) has had the printer working.
Aussie granddaughter (made in Oz)!) with a pool ball triangle made on 3D printer. Took about 8 hours 🙂