Tag : 3D printer

5 posts

201603/01

T Tuesday: WIP edition

I’ve working on painting all of the Settlers of Catan pieces in between playing nursemaid. Mini-me has influenza. I’m beginning to think that Typhoid Mary is camped out in our house.

See those little tiny bits of white in the green hex tiles. Those are teeny tiny sheep..complete with black faces. I have to take off my glasses and hold the tile a couple inches from my face to see to paint them. BAH!!! Getting older isn’t for the faint of heart.

The attention to detail is worth it in the end though. Once I get all the pieces completed, we’ll decide in the border color for all the tiles. It must be consistent throughout the tiles. I’m leaning towards a cream to taupe tone so that the paint job on each will really pop.

I also have to share this Model T Mr. G printed. He had to modify the original CAD file as it wasn’t going to print correctly. He designed the wheels, axle pieces and the mounts for the axles.

The penny is for scale. This is for a history presentation J is doing today. He and his partner thought a 3D model would add some punch to their project.

Time for a bit of tea before some errands and more nursemaid duty. I’ll do my best to get around to visit my T stands for Tuesday friends as soon as I can.

What are you doing today?

3D printing | Blog | Tabletop gaming

3D printer, games, paint, T Tuesday

11 Comments

halleday

201602/22

Jamaica, mon!

Our family enjoys board games especially slightly out of the ordinary board games not made by the typical sources such as Hasbro and Milton Bradley. Most are titles you won’t find at your local discount department store like Target. Heck we’ve even played a game that was totally in German. We borrowed the game from a hobby shop owner who gave us a rough translation of the rules. But I digress…

Recently we played a game from our collection called Jamaica.

It’s basically a racing game that you manage your cargo and occasionally get to battle another player. Strategy and luck both play into the equation.

You keep track of who is “captain” for the turn with this compass piece.

Mr. G found this model of a ships wheel on Thingiverse and thought it might make a great custom edition to the game in place of the chipboard compass. Looks cool but not exactly the right color.

Here’s the wheel in progress, extremely wet with paint. After this completely dried, I sprayed it with walnut ink. I wasn’t sure this was a good choice but what the heck…I live dangerously.

Here’s the completed wheel in play. I sprayed it with a matte spray sealer to protect it from chips and scratches. I tested the durability of it by rubbing it together with the Hand of the King piece I had previously completed. There is no way either object will be as roughly abused as that during regular game play and storage so I think we are good.

I love how the walnut ink settled into the layers of the print giving the appearance of wood grain. So fun!

Currently I’m working on another board game. I had always wanted to make a set of custom tiles for this game but assumed that I’d be scratch building each tiles like I do for miniature terrain pieces. Since the game has 19 tiles…the task was a little daunting. Mr. G is printing the board pieces from files shared on Thingiverse. I am adding custom paint jobs to each piece. More on that project to come…

3D printing | Blog | Tabletop gaming

T Tuesday: no name edition

It’s Tuesday again…time for T stands for Tuesday hosted by Elizabeth. Grab a cup and stay awhile.

The past week is one of those I’d like to forget ever happened. Instead I’m going to talk about some pleasant things like what I’ve been doing with the 3D printed items Mr. G has been creating. There is a fantastic resource out there called Thingiverse. It has CAD files for 3D printing for an ever growing number of things anyone can imagine.

Anyone familiar with Game of Thrones??

Hand of the King…just after I started the sanding process.

a little more smooth…nearly ready to paint.

Did you know that a red base layer makes gold deeper and richer?

What do you think? I think it looks pretty awesome…aw crud… except….

that the photo should have been taken in this orientation. Such as this. DUH!

Oh well…no one is perfect. I blame my everlasting cold virus for my lapse of clear thought.

That’s it for today…more projects to come.

What are you doing today?

3D printing | Blog | Crafts

3D printer, paint, T Tuesday

18 Comments

halleday

201602/15

3D printer..let the fun begin

As soon as 3D printers came out Mr. G has been wanting one. Here it is…fresh from the box. It came with a little yellow octopus that they print with your particular machine before shipping it. And enough filament and the necessary software to print a second slightly varied model.

***FYI–photo heavy post***

I present the finished “roctopus” which it this particular company’s logo/mascot.

It was such a fascinating process to watch.

Next Mr. G moved to the garage and went about printing some calibration units to fine tune the machine…I didn’t document any of that…I got bored. After that process was complete he went about printing a case for the tiny RapsberryPi computer that he has running the machine.

This is the bottom of the case. Amazing isn’t it!!! How a spool of plastic filament can become a 3D object. There is a CAD program involved and a slicing program… I know some of you may be thinking “blah,blah..techie…blah..” but it is a very cool process.

In my next couple posts I’ll be sharing how all this plays into things of an artsy manner as well as super practical things such as….

…gears for the machine itself. All the plastic parts for this 3D printer are…you guessed it….3D printed. WHA?? Super cool. They give the files to create replacement parts with the machine. They recommend that you print certain ones that wear the quickest.

Mr. G also has ideas for household uses…such as the air compressor was in need of a new filter for the air intake…he wanted something more high performance to prolong the life of the compressor itself. He designed this new fitting in a CAD program then printed it out.

Perfect fit for the filter he prefers.

How cool is that!

Okay…I’m sure you’ve had enough of me bragging about my husband.

I’m working on painting some cool pieces for a couple board games and thinking up fun crafty things as well…more to come…I promise!

3D printing | Around home | Blog

T Tuesday: pattern making edition

Good morning and welcome to T stands for Tuesday.

I finally caught the cold/virus that Big J was suffering with all last week. Bummer! Hopefully we won’t continue to pass it along to the rest of the family.

Before I started feeling cruddy I was asked by Mr. G to make a cover for his new gadget…a 3D printer.