Object Design and Fabrication Spring 2024

      Over the last two weeks I've done a few test prints to get an idea of how to make sure the tiara prints properly. I created a small object using the same lattice parts of the tiara in order to have a quick to print example of how the tiara might print.                         I tweaked a variety of settings for getting the best results. I tested different sized nozzles, 0.4mm, 0.6mm, and 0.8mm. I tested different numbers of perimeters, as well as the number of top and bottom layers. I also played with the top and bottom fill patterns, layer height, print speed, and filament flow rates. All tests were done with 0% infill, since I needed the print to be completely hollow in order to fill the inside with fluid pigment.     In my testing, I found that the best settings were printing at a temperature 200 Celsius using a 0.4mm nozzle at a 0.2mm layer height, with 2 perimeters, and 5 top l...

      It took me some time to figure out how to render my object properly, because I wanted to make sure that the contour lines of the 3D print were visible. At first, I wasn't able to find a material that looked like what I wanted, so I had initially tried emulating the contours by taking a set of contour curves from the tiara, spaced 1mm apart, fillet the corners of those curves and then apply 1mm pipes to them all, but this method was far too heavy on the computer. When I first applied it, I mindlessly applied the pipe command to all 1811 contour curves, freezing Rhino for so long, that I had to force quit the program. I retried by only applying the pipes to a few layers of contours at a time. The pipes didn't apply properly to all the curves, and I had to remove a handful of them. After this, I applied a translucent plastic material to the pipes, but this didn't look the way I wanted it to look.                   ...

 The final piece took a bit of work, but I'm ultimately happy with how it looks. Using a series of small parts derived from rhomboid shapes seen in the rainbow lattice sunstone, I assembled the tiara, carefully composing the shapes, the overlaps, and visual depth. Presentation for project two  here .     The pre-final version, though carefully constructed, I decided was too delicate to try and print with a hollow interior, I had constructed it from 2mm x 2mm prisms. But this helped me better understand the visual language I was developing, and informed the final version.     The final version, using 4mm x 4mm prisms, proved a bit trickier to emulate the same level of detail the previous version had, but I figured it out in the end.       I started with 270 degree arc that measured 160mm in diameter, extruded perpendicular to it's plane, and used Unroll to create a plane I could use as a template for the patter. On that flat plane, I asse...

    I've settled on making my jewelry design a tiara, but I'm still figuring out the final design that will be. I've been experimenting with various tools to create geometric patterns for the tiara. I'm mainly inspired by the inclusions formed in the rainbow lattice sunstone in the concept post for this project, but I've also been exploring more curved geometry inspired in part by mathematical topology.     Something that needs to be considered for my concept to work, is that for the tiara to be printed as a negative cavity that can be filled with liquid, is that all piece of the tiara must be connect, with the smallest cross section to be no smaller than 2mm in order to ensure printing clearance for the gap, and that the surface tension of the liquid I use to fill the cavity doesn't keep air bubble from escaping.     I am also contemplating another method to reach similar outcome, where I instead 3D print only the outer shell of the tiara, o...

     The end of this project had a few obstacles and hiccups. For one, the sheets of plywood were actually only about 23 and a half inches long instead of 24 inches, forcing me to scale down my full drawings by a factor of about 1/50th last minute. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to scale my drawings without scaling the dowel holes, and so they all ended up too small for my dowels to fit. To compensate, bored the dowel holes with drill bits of the right size.      I also really underestimated the how wide the cuts from the laser would be, so much pieces didn't line up as precisely as I had hoped.      Another factor I had considered was the amount of friction there would be between my moving part, which meant that I had to compromise on some of my moving parts in order for the iris mechanism to work. I tried to wipe the parts with candle wax to lubricate the parts, but it wasn't enough. If I had known that the friction would be such a p...

For this project, I want to model jewelry inspired by gemstone inclusions, where I created a negative of the jewelry, so that it looks as though it is trapped within the solid material,  I'm going into this project with the intent of using the models for the third project, so that I can spend more time on experimenting with the material.       Some basic sketches of a ring and a geometric shape as cavities within the clear PLA, as well as a sketch of several "trapped" pieces of jewerly strung together for a necklace.   A (very) rough sketch of a tiara cavity inside the solid clear plastic. As far as printing goes, I'm going to attempt to print the pieces with a hollow low density infill between the cavity and the outer walls, and then fill that with either a clear liquid such as water or oil, or fill it with epoxy resin. Here are a few images of gemstones with inclusions that I'll be taking inspiration from. Quartz with red rutile inclusions Quarts point with pe...