Fun with LASERs

[Sundae]

I watched The Hotel Inspector a few weeks back.
Well, what you going to do when you can't work?

Couldn't work out what was being pixellated out in the lobby.
PORN?
A racy painting or somesuch?
No.
A Dalek.
Couldn't show it on Channel 4 because it's protected by patent. Otherwise it could be used in any Channel 4 series. Seemed a bit heavy-handed to me, but hey - it's our money they're protecting after all.

Colour me impressed that the Beeb liked your models. Well, they'd be mad not to, but they have high standards. Have a nice cup of tea and a sit down in celebration.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That tardis link doesn't work for me.

[ZenGum]

LASER etching, 3-D printing ... the 21st century is pretty cool.

[JamesB]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

That tardis link doesn't work for me.

Interesting. We have a number of IP adresses blocked after problems with spammers. It's possible that your IP may be in the range we've blocked. I've killed the blocking, so see if it works now.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Nope, I altered the link and got to the fractalcoffee home page and looked around the site, but that link won't work for me.

[JamesB]

Curiouser and Curiouser.

I'll have to do some more investigation. What Browser and Operating System are you running?

Does this full link work?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Nope, blank page. IE-9 in 7.

Does work in Firefox.

[JamesB]

Interesting, it comes up blank on my IE9 on 7 installation as well. There's no reason for it I can see. The page code checks out fine on the W3C validator site, so it looks like it's something in IE9 that's behaving oddly.

Works fine in the Firefox/Mozilla suites.

[Happy Monkey]

Man do I envy you that equipment. And know-how.

I love that TARDIS.

Is the "official color" affected by the undrlying material color? Or is the paint opaque enough that the material doesn't matter?

[JamesB]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Man do I envy you that equipment. And know-how.

I love that TARDIS.

Is the "official color" affected by the undrlying material color? Or is the paint opaque enough that the material doesn't matter?

The paint I used is a standard satin finish latex interior paint, so like all latex paints, put on enough coats and the underlying colour doesn't show through.

The real trick was getting the paint mixed to the correct colour. The BBC Doctor Who Style Manual that I had access to (not something you can normally buy, and used by license holders as a reference), states that the correct colour is Pantone 2955C. While you can by paint from Pantone, the price was outrageous ($40/quart plus shipping, customs, and taxes) and the delivery time just wasn't compatible with the short time period I had to get a painted model together. I used a couple tools to translate the Pantone number into a colour format that could be used by the colour mixing equipment at our local Home Depot.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by JamesB

A new piece of LASER hardware will be arriving in a few months ... I've ordered a high resolution 3D printer.

Most of the hobyist 3D printers use plastic extrusion (FDM) technology and work by running plastic filaments through a heated deposition nozzle. The one I've ordered is a stereolithography (SL) type that uses a scanning LASER beam to activate and cure acrylate photopolymer resin. While the materials are more expensive, the resolution it can achieve is far higher.

I've got a big learning curve ahead of me relearning 3D modelling (I haven't played with 3D since LightWave 4, over a decade ago), as well as learning the 3D printing process with out wasting too much of the ~$150 (don't know the exact cost yet) per litre resin.

I came across this YouTube video (ad) of what seems to be touted as a "new and better" way of doing 3D printing. The way I've seen it before is the material is piped from above and the nozzle moves about depositing the material in layers... building up to form the product.

This company says they are feeding the material from the below, with the lazer on top. The video is just over a minute long, but the product comes up and is shown at 1:10.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I believe that method preceded the current squirt from a nozzle method, by several years.

[Lamplighter]

I have no idea how these were done... maybe lazers... maybe not.
But I liked them and thought others might too.

I found these pics in Anneke van Bommel’s blog - Art by Cal Lane

[xoxoxoBruce]

Apparently torch cut by Cal Lane, according to the NY Times. But reporters are notorious for botching details.

[gvidas]

Critical theorists, curators, and museum directors may have a limited knowledge of sculpture technology compared to that of sculpture historians or sculptors themselves; however, the imprecise use of the term “welding” is more than a minor catachresis. Cal Lane’s sculpture production is the very opposite of welding: a cutting process rather than a joining process. To clarify, welding is the joining of two parent metals by melting them both while adding a similar intermediate metal, a process that produces a homogeneous piece of metal. Lane pierces thick steel with an oxyacetylene cutting torch and cuts thin steel with a plasma cutter, and although there may be an impressive display of sparks, this is not welding and Cal Lane’s sculpture practice is not a feminist parody of the film Flashdance

http://grunt.ca/wordpress/wp-content...ay-forweb1.pdf


I must confess I skimmed a bit.