I got a bit distracted from the French Fusiliers.
I've never liked the clock in our bathroom and when we re-arranged it I started to look for a new one. Couldn't find anything I like, so I thought "why not use the mechanism to make one I do like?" How hard can it be?
So I found some Art Deco/Art Nouveau designs I liked on the interweb, took the old one apart and created a digital model for 3D printing. This was done on my filament printer.
The new face is a steal from a 1920's style clock ,drawn on thin card and coloured with sharpies. The surround I designed myself to fit into the available space, and to fit the existing glass, dial and mechanism.
It needed a certain depth for the mechanism but if I printed it all in one the printer would have had to support the flat back of the front while it was printing the walls, which would just be a waste of time, energy and materials. So I made the front to build directly on the build plate, and the walls separately to minimize the amount of support needed, and therefore reduce the build time.
The keyhole fixing plate was also separate for the same reason.
The PLA filament I use glues together perfectly with dichloromethane, TET, EMA plastic weld etc.
My printer will do two colours of filament at the same time so I was able to exploit that property with my design. Unfortunately the layering process wasn't as good as it might have been and some of them delaminated, but only in the areas of the shallow curve.
I will file this down but it won't be possible to replicate the original finish so I'm printing some separate cover plates on my other (resin) printer and I'll spray them to match the bronze on the dial.
Anyway, here's the (almost) finished article
thanks for looking
Neil
I've never liked the clock in our bathroom and when we re-arranged it I started to look for a new one. Couldn't find anything I like, so I thought "why not use the mechanism to make one I do like?" How hard can it be?
So I found some Art Deco/Art Nouveau designs I liked on the interweb, took the old one apart and created a digital model for 3D printing. This was done on my filament printer.
The new face is a steal from a 1920's style clock ,drawn on thin card and coloured with sharpies. The surround I designed myself to fit into the available space, and to fit the existing glass, dial and mechanism.
It needed a certain depth for the mechanism but if I printed it all in one the printer would have had to support the flat back of the front while it was printing the walls, which would just be a waste of time, energy and materials. So I made the front to build directly on the build plate, and the walls separately to minimize the amount of support needed, and therefore reduce the build time.
The keyhole fixing plate was also separate for the same reason.
The PLA filament I use glues together perfectly with dichloromethane, TET, EMA plastic weld etc.
My printer will do two colours of filament at the same time so I was able to exploit that property with my design. Unfortunately the layering process wasn't as good as it might have been and some of them delaminated, but only in the areas of the shallow curve.
I will file this down but it won't be possible to replicate the original finish so I'm printing some separate cover plates on my other (resin) printer and I'll spray them to match the bronze on the dial.
Anyway, here's the (almost) finished article
thanks for looking
Neil
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