Hey guys,
Time was against me this week so I needed to keep things nice and simple. Now a few
of you guys have been requesting cufflinks and as this is my last video before Halloween,
I couldn’t resist.
Making something roughly pumpkin shape was easy thanks to Fusion 360.
When it came to spooky faces, I find it helps to think of the mother-in-law.
I printed out some prototypes on my Elegoo Mars resin printer to give me a better feel
for how it will print and after a couple of minor tweaks I printed again using castable
resin.
If you’re wondering about the strange thing the prints are attached to, it’s one of
my strange experiments that’s working great. I’ll talk more about it next week when I
have the time.
These are a bit thin in places, so plenty of small sprues should help the metal flow.
I’m still loving this wax pen.
Now if you’re familiar with my straw technique, look at this excellent idea. It comes from
our friend Dick Morris in Alaska and it’s purpose is to really maximise vacuum reach
inside a flask. On a quick draft setting it prints in a little over 4 hours. Dick has
kindly allowed me to share this file on Thingiverse so look out for it there.
Folks have been asking lately, so as a recap, I do use a homemade vacuum system and this
is it.
The hot flask comes out the burnout oven and sits on this silicone pad. A vacuum pump is
turned on and a vacuum pulls through the plaster, aided in this case by Dick’s lattice liner
that has evaporated in the heat.
Now something has gone wrong here. The button has completely vanished into the depths of
my slop buckets, but luckily the castings seem to have survived.
There’s a fair bit of flashing but that should come away easily.
One of these guys had a little metal in his eye so I didn’t bother with him, but the
other three turned out okay. I’m very much a novice with pewter, but it does shine up
well and if it’s good enough for jewellers, it’s good enough for me.
And if you’re wondering if they work, here they are being modelled by my son Michael.
As you can see, he’s the spitting image of me. Two peas in a pod we are. It’s something
about the eyes maybe...
Just like Dick, I’ll be sharing this Halloween themed cufflink file on Thingiverse for anyone
who wants to print them, or even cast them. And if you do cast them, drop me a line and
maybe send me a picture.
So that’s it for now guys, take care and thanks for watching.