20 Flashes

After reading that the pieces need to be cured more, I printed and flashed 20 times (200 minutes) in the ProJet's curing chamber.

There is a noticeable colour difference between the previous prints that were cured for just 2 cycles


 I also read about investing the flask and letting it sit for 20 min before putting it into a preheated kiln (1700'F)  and doing a 2hour burnout as opposed  to 6 or 8. So I decided to give it a try.

Initially I had forgotten to put the flask in, it was put in after 60 min which resulted to the investment exploding in the kiln.

I then re-invested and put it in the pre-heated kiln after 20min. There was no explosion, thank God.
These are the results

 

I found that the surfaces are porous, maybe I need to cure for longer?

Printing Rings Sideways

Having my printing and casting done by a company in Johannesburg, I noticed that they always print rings to the side as opposed to upright. After questioning why this was done I was told that it is a time saving technique that they use when printing as it saves more than half the time printing it on its sides as opposed to upright.  I decided to give this a try.

 

As you can see from the pictures above, it was not a successful print. This had happened to me before at design@50 and the only way to overcome this was to add a 5 degree angle to the article being printed.

 

After printing with a 5 degree angle of the ring, the print was a success.

Back to the Green

Having had so many problems with the FTX Cast resin and its cartridges, I decided to go back to printing using the FTX Green resin as I found it less problematic as well as not having any other cartridges of the Cast resin. The pendant was printed in parts and then cast.

 

The prints were successful it just needed to be invested and cast

 

After an 8 hour burnout, these were the results. it was a better cast than before however it was still horrible. Extremely frustrated that the casting isn't working out.

GrabCAD

Last week, whilst my printer was being set up I was advised to have a look at a site called GrabCAD. This site contains literally everything under the sun which is able to be downloaded and printed. The problem with these downloads are that the formats are usually stl. These stl files do not allow you to work on the file like you usually would when saving on rhino. So you can literally just scale up or down and that's about it. However this is a really cool site to see the design skills of others designing using CAD.

The website for GrabCAD is https://grabcad.com/home 

Solidscape Quote

So whilst wanting to purchase a 3D printer I thought it would be a good idea to look at all the printers and their prices and then weigh up my options. I received a quote for 2 printers from Solidscape. The Solidscape 3Z Studion and the Solidscape Pro (the one that I used whilst at Design@50)

 

I was rather taken a back when informed that all these prices are in dollars and they didn't include vacuums which are beneficial for the printers to work.

Resin Casting a Success

I started today of with some great news. The casting of the new Projet 1200 resin was a success! I was told that there was minimal porosity as well as cleaning on the casting and it was a huge improvement compared to the previous Projet 1200 resin (green in colour). I am not certain if it was due to the new resin or the R&R investment powder or maybe even a combination between the two. I plan on contacting Rapid Print 3D and asking for more Resins so that I am able to further my investigations on casting this resin.

Investing the new Projet 1200 resin

Having received the R&R investment powder I couldn't wait to see what the outcome would be with the new Projet 1200 resin....Surprisingly enough the process is very similar to our  normal lost wax casting except for the resin needing to be dipped into a special solution before being invested. The piece is invested and ready to go into the kiln..... if the casting goes well there might be a 3D printer purchase in the near future. crossing fingers!

R&R Plasticast Investment

After a very long wait, my R&R Plasticast investment has just arrived! after paying almost  This very expensive investment powder is said to work the best when investing and casting printable resins.

Prong Stone Settings

So when it comes to setting stones/ creating settings you need to be very careful....reason being is all the stones on Rhino are "calibrated'' and are exactly the same size....where in the real world they aren't always the same sizes....The guidelines for settings are;

Stones must be placed a minimum of 0.2mm away from each other

The claw diameter for setting stones are a minimum of 0.5mm thick with a minimum height of 0.7mm (in my previous post I discussed the volume of metal and how if there is enough volume it will be a successful print/cast... this is another one of those examples)

How thin is to thin?

When designing and manufacturing using CAD/CAM technology there are certain limitations you have to adhere to. One major limitation being metal thicknesses. The minimum metal thickness for you to have a successful print/ cast is ;

Wire work : 0.6mm
Metal Thickness : 0.55mm (although it is not always successful)

However everything is dependent on volume due to casting and the metal being able to flow...

Example:

Even though the image above has a metal thickness of 0.3mm at the top; it will still be a successful print/cast due to the article having volume....

Ring Sizes

When inserting a ring size onto Rhino, you always add 0.3mm to the inner diameter of the shank. This is due to slight shrinkage caused through the printing and casting process.

for example if the ring size is a ''M'' size (Diameter of which being 16.70mm) I would then add 0.3mm to that making the ring size 17mm on Rhino

Ladies Shank Guidlines

To create a Ladies Shank that is going to house a setting of any sort, you need to remember 3 things, all involving metal thicknesses. The bottom of the ring must be a minimum of 1.5mm, the side of the ring must be at least 1.8mm and the top of the ring must have a minimum height of 2mm.

Sticking to the Guidlines

So I am finally back home after spending a good few months in Johannesburg where I have been trying to improve my skills using CAD to design and manufacture jewellery. Before I left to do this course I was under the impression that there was a specific recipe/ method in creating jewellery using CAD , but what I learnt was that there are various ways of doing things to get the same result, all you have to do is stick to the basic guidelines for manufacturing. The next few posts are just some of the guidelines you have to adhere to in order to get a good print.

Solidscape part 2

After a very very long wait....My print is finally done! but the process isn't quiet.... once the print is done, you have to take the build plate out of the very sensitive machine and heat it up to exactly 110 degrees before you are able to scrape it off. However the pieces still look like blue and purple blobs....in order for you to remove the supports of the pieces without damaging them, you then put them into a mineral oil and methylated spirit mix and leave on the hot plate to dissolve the supports. Problem with this step is all your hard work could literally disappear right in front of your eyes if you leave it in for too long as if the mix is hot enough it could dissolve your entire print. It was my first time ever experiencing a 3D printer in this case it happened to be a Solidscape... and I was astonished at the amount of steps there was to get one print done. This experience made me like the Roland cutter a lot more than I initially did. I hope the other 3D Printers are better....

 

The  Printing bed being heated so that we can remove the pieces

The supports for my piece being dissolved in the mix

My ring after the lengthy process

 

Inene Product Developmet - Cutting on the Roland

So I am going to prototype the products for Inene but I m trying to work as smart as I possibly could due to printing being expensive especially if there is no definite order.....I learnt about a resin mix called F16. this allows you to cut out your piece and vulcanize it straight without having to cast it in a metal. I have decided to use the Roland Jwx 10 machine to do this job as it is quick and inexpensive compared to the other machines.

 

What I found really cool about this machine in particular, is that it is set up to do a flip cut;what this basically means is you are able to have detail on both ends of the product provided that there are no undercuts.

Building a car using Rhino

I was recently given a demonstration on how to create a surface using a network of curves on Rhino. after trying to create parts of a small model airplane, I felt brave enough to try and design a car in my spare time. Below are screen shots of my progress thus far.

Rim inspired Rings

 

Above is an image that I found on Pinterest, it depicts a Mustang with some really cool rims. I decided to use the rim as a source of inspiration to create gents bands.

 

 

Starting Afresh, well kinda....

So after changing my subject matter in terms of sculptural forms from ''sculptures'' to cars, I decided to get started by browsing images which I took a liking too, I then created a mood board and started to manufacture jewellery based loosely around the image.

 

This is the first image I decided to work with, It is an Image of a Mercedes Benz GL 63 Amg, I was drawn to this image because I found the mesh work of the grill interesting as well as its distinct angular lines.

 

Some of the renderings of the jewellery below vary ever so slightly, I decided to have fun and create a collection of designs and at the very end choose the most appealing.