Latest thing you have printed / machined / cut

UKworkshop.co.uk

Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I got around to printing some clips to hold my click it cable to the extractor hose. Not my design this time, it’s from Thingiverse. I did modify the file to make two sizes as I have the 5 meter hose which gets quite a bit thicker towards the extractor end.
IMG_4040.jpeg

IMG_4039.jpeg
 
Last edited:
I got around to printing some clips to hold my click it cable to the extractor hose. Not my design this time, it’s from Thingiverse. I did modify the file to make two sizes as I have the 5 meter hose which gets quite a bit thicker towards the extractor end.
View attachment 169750
View attachment 169751
They'd also so great for aquarium keepers, to hold air line to inlet and outlet hoses.
 
Need to find a better method of either doing the inlays so there's less clean up or a better way of removing the over spill, of which there was a lot.
Sealing is mandatory for any resin project. You also can use a coat (or two) of thinner epoxy to seal it.

That paper with adhesive back, yes, it helps with all similar carving inlaying.

Tips for using a syringe - get a thick inner diameter needle. Resin is viscous, nevertheless there are needles that can be used to apply it. Once you get such contraptions, put them on and then position the syringe with the needle inside of the carved areas. Hold the syringe well, push the resin out. Then you can slowly follow the inside of the contour. One hand keeping it steady, one hand squeezing it. Not sure I explained this clearly, feel free to ask for further details.

Resin melts with heat. Most epoxy resins have their melting point above 70-75 degree Celsius. If you splash the work piece you can let it cure, then use a heat gun to soften the splashes/drops and get them off with a spatula or other flexible thin metal.

Of course you can use pure acetone to clean epoxy drops before they cure, not sure if you're OK with the smell.

Regarding the overfill of the inlay area, you can try the thick needle syringe technique above, that's mainly the way to do it.

Scraping too works, so does sanding with an random orbital sander (watch the speed though). Too much friction causes overheating, then other problems.
 
Note to self if you want to make CNC finger joints looser the offset value in vcarve needs to be negative 🤦

To be fair I didn't have to try and hammer it in and kinda knew this would happen.

PXL_20231118_182633408.jpg

Switched to laser cutter for a simple coffee filter holder. Wanted to come up with a nice design but I was drawing a blank this evening.
PXL_20231118_184729514.jpg
 
The parts haven’t been designed to be easily printed, lots of overhangs and hollows which need supports, but that said it doesn’t look to be a challenging project overall.
Given the cost of a vintage example you could justify getting a printer…
 
Would think that with some tweaks you could make those parts into having at least one flat surface each. Right now it's primarily the knuckles of the hinges that will cause grief, more an esthetic choice than anything else.
In that mirror body are a few unfortunate things as well, extremely thin walls were a cylinder intersects a flat wall to form the hinge is one.
 
I made a replacement motor fan for my DeWalt DW1251 more as an exercise than a necessity. The original one was slightly damaged but did the job. I just wanted to see if I could make one. I printed it with PLA and it snugly fits onto the spindle. I've uploaded the STL, Fusion and STEP files to Printables.com.
20231129_082632.jpg
 
The last thing I made was 10 months ago, when relocating my stuff from a small and very cramped 8' x 6' shed into a new shed that is 12' x 8' in size. It took me far longer than I had expected because of essential landscaping work, an extended concrete base, new fence to replace a rotting one and then a 4 month lead time for the new shed to appear, culminating in several weeks to fit the required electricity system. Final painting and fettling so should be active by Christmas.

What you see is a 3D carved heart in Canadian maple wood, that has been laser engraved because it was to be a wedding present to a friend. it is 200 x 200 x 25mm in size. It also had a carved base to hold the heart with the date appended to it. I cannot find the relevant photo for that.The wood is as it came off the machine and the only finish applied was a creme of beeswax combined with a very small amount of walnut oil. It was carved in about 180 minutes using a roughing pass of a 6.35mm 4 flute square end mill bit and a 0.25mm 2 flute ball ended mill bit. The STL file design was purchased from somewhere (possibly Etsy) for about 7 quid. I used Carveco Maker to carve the 3D design and gSender to send the resulting file to my CNC machine. The couple's name was V carved using an Amana 60 degree bit.

The laser work was applied in a single pass using a JTech 4.2 Watt blue diode laser and Lightburn was the controlling software. The Shapeoko CNC machine is an S3 standard model with a work area roughly 400mm square and 95mm high and on which I have modified the baseboard. The baseboard is a 12mm aluminium fixture plate with 840 threaded holes (M6) spaced at 20mm centres.The workpiece in these images is held by 2 complete modular vices supplied by Saunders Machine Works in the USA. They also supplied the fixture plate. I changed the path of the 9mm wide Gates GT2 belts for a straighter path and easier tensioning. Tensioning the belts is done with a guitar tuner to 135Hz (middle C) and the belts stay tensioned for at least 9 months. I would prefer to use a proper spindle but at this time I am using a very noisy Makita trim router as my spindle. My intention is to change this machine for something with a fourth axis and an automatic tool changer.

EDIT: to add size details
 

Attachments

  • heart reverse.jpg
    heart reverse.jpg
    981.9 KB · Views: 0
  • Heart.jpg
    Heart.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 0
Last edited:
Not really a make although I did design and print the phone holder. I wanted to monitor my printer while away from it and wondered if there was a way of using an old mobile phone. Found an app called Alfred Camera which allows you to use an old phone as a security camera that you can access over WiFi. As it comes, it's free then you may add other features like cloud storage if you want.
 

Attachments

  • 20231215_113706.jpg
    20231215_113706.jpg
    3.3 MB · Views: 0
  • 20231215_113647.jpg
    20231215_113647.jpg
    3.6 MB · Views: 0
Last edited:
Gift for a friend, filter paper holder made from 4mm walnut mdf, display box made from 6mm walnut mdf with 3mm acrylic sliding door.
The display box was prefinished with polycrylic and the fitler holder was prefinished with lacquer.
Wanted to try out prefinishing my laser cut projects to make things quicker and easier. I prefer lacquer so far.
20231214060251_IMG_0875.JPG
 

Latest posts

Back
Top