Jewellery project

Hello there, the next project I am taking on is creating and printing jewellery. After discussion with the jeweller, the most useful use of printed jewellery was for creating samples for making moulds from. This would only be possible if the makerbot was capable of printing with sufficient accuracy and detail to make it viable.

To start with, I made this simple ring just to see how well the printer handles it. I put it into the makerbot pretty confident that it would print nicely. I even used the high detail settings in the makerware taking the layer thickness to 0.1mm. It didn't turn out. The top and inside seemed to be alright but the bottom half of the outside didn't print well at all, the surface seemed to be missing. I needed the raft because the plastic couldn't seem to stick well enough on such a small footprint.

So I tried again, this time with the standard settings that used 0.2mm layer height. The results were the same but worse. It was missing the same part but the detail was much cruder.

It was possible that it was my model that was unsuitable so I tried to print it using the up printer. As you can see below, the results were much more consistent. The surface was even all around, it snapped off the base pretty easily. This was nice but it meant that it wasn't my design it was the printer which was worrying.

I designed a few rings based on photos I found on the Internet, you can see on the bottom right corner the two twisty type rings. The black one was done in the makerbot, the white in the up printer. Both were failures. The support structure on both of them was hard to remove and didn't come off cleanly. The resulting pieces were quite weak and had too much surface disruption to be even close to being suitable for moulding.

This is the other ring that I modelled in blender, it wasn't too hard to do and I was hopeful that it would print out nicely.

As you can see below, the ring printed out relatively nicely but it was over sized. After removing the supports the resulting finish was like the other ring, it left a lumpy surface behind that would be impossible to smooth without breaking it.

It seems that the makerbot just isn't capable of producing the fine detail at that size needed for mould production. This is disappointing but I need to finish the project so I will change tack.

I will go for high quality rendered images of jewellery that I have designed. I will begin by sketching up a few designs then modelling, texturing then rendering them.

Next project

Hello there, my next project will be for a local jeweller making prototypes and, if the prints are exact enough, create forms that will used to make moulds for casting real pieces.

My first task is to make a proof of concept, so I will find an image of a ring, re-create it in blender then print it out. What is important is that the pieces are detailed and exact enough to have stones attached to them because that will be the determining factor of whether they can make suitable moulds or not. My aim is to have several samples printed by mid next week.

Nest Project - Full sized print

Hello there, after tweaking the design to even up the outside walls as well as doing a little smoothing, I took the stl file I exported from blender and imported it into the makerware. The makerware took a long time to convert it to a x3g file but it got there in the end. Here is a shot of the nest in the makerware.

Tho bounding box represents the build size so the model was as wide as it could be. Once it was sliced up I put it onto the sd card the the makerbot and let it go. Twenty hours later I came back to find this.

The print had worked! As you can see the support structure has warped a little bit but that didn't matter because the print itself was solid enough to hold it's shape. After an hour or so of destructuring I had a finished product.

The lady who commissioned these pieces was quite happy with the result and asked if I could produce a few more. The second full size print came out well, the third was a failure but it wasn't the machines fault. The filament had been taped to the spool halfway through the reel so at some stage during the night the filament had run out and the print was only half done. I put another one on with the hope that the filament left was enough to produce a full one.

Unfortunately there was not enough but a very small amount. The filament had run out about two centimetres from the top so it was very disappointing to see. After a call to the artist it was agreed that I would print another one in white ABS. The first attempt ended in total failure because the build was knocked off the plate a few hours in. The white ABS seemed to be a lot more prone to warping. With great trepidation I put another one on and came back to check it about four hours into the build. The print was hanging onto the plate by a thread and rocking back and forth as the print head moved over it. There was nothing I could do so I left it to it over the weekend would find out on the Monday if it worked.

By some miracle it had printed out so I quickly destructured it and it was sent off the Albury that day with the other nests. Regarding the exhibition they will be shown at I will have to gather more information but as far as the project is concerned, it is complete.