Donna has Handed In.

Feel free to cheer and caper about.

I seem to be signed up for the Shapeways 3d-printing beta (www.shapeways.com).

Which means, I can send any old 3d file (STL, Collada, X3D) off to a nice man in Holland, and it'll come back in white plastic for two bucks per CC.

If it's hollow, the volume inside doesn't count, so it isn't even ruinously expensive.

Clearly, we are now living in the future. I wonder what it's for ?

And, who knows about 3d design software ? The stuff I've tried in the past has always seemed rather intractable.

Is

( Spot The Difference: )

As you may or may not know, Donna & I spent the week before last on Lundy.

Which, as you may or may not know, is a moderately deserted island in the Bristol Channel, run by the National Trust and the Landmark Trust for the benefit of the Lundy Cabbage, a lot of sheep, some twitchers and bellringers and rock-climbers, and those who feel they ought to be living in simpler times. Our trip was delayed from last year, when Herm was forced to stand in for a plague-ridden Lundy.

We spent our time wandering about, staring at the wildlife in a non-technical way, and sitting in the sun. No screens, no connectivity, no newspapers, not even much electric light. It was marvellous, and I commend it to you all. Except for the week when the bellringers are there. Avoid that. We had them one day, and they did not improve the place.

Photos are here:

From Lundy (small ...

Here's a pendant I made for Donna, for our wedding anniversary :
( Click for the Shiny! )

( So wrong, and yet so right )

Saturday saw my first stumbling steps into the world of CNC, with assistance from quercus and the inimitable 10bulls
( Pictures! )

( A busy little bat in the twilight: )

.. is Spot the Difference.

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I had the pleasure of a quick trip to Barcelona to wander the vast, mazelike halls of the Mobile World Congress.

Turns out that bits of the city are very picturesque. Just not the bits I went to:

From Barcelona

In other titanium news, Noggin End has run out of everything but 0.5mm sheet. And I bought most of his stock of that from him today. But he should have a lot more in stock in a couple of weeks time.

And, I tried the trusty hardness tester on the 2mm stock today. It comes in about Rockwell B 90 (~192 Hv), which I think keeps it in the CP bucket.

For those of you who are interested in such things, the titanium from Noggin End seems to cold-forge and heat-colour very nicely. I suspect it's CP. And, being nice thick stuff, it takes a lovely hammer mark.

But, if anyone knows how to work out what ANNV449226ABS5142A really means, I'd be interested.

What you see here:



is the back of meltie's head. I'm guessing the front is occupied with equal parts of apprehension at the prospect of driving such a dinosaur and glee at the prospect of owning it. At least, I hope so.

I've had the thing for fifteen years. I bet it will last meltie as long. And I think he may find new kinds of mischief to get up to with it.

Forwards in all direction!

What makes sarah_mum very happy ? Apparently, tormenting hapless metal bars to warp them to her will:



As anyone who has been in the shed knows, it's been a slightly epic production. Three or four weekends of reasonably sustained work, and a quite startling length of steel. I'm ridiculously glad with the way it turned out, and I didn't even design it.

Let's hope it proves restful, and doesn't sprout tiny porcelain hands in the night.

Had a bit of a play with my second mokume billet today, with some success. This one was stuck pretty well all over, and gave me next to no trouble. I did keep failing to gouge it deeply enough to get a decent pattern, though.

I think the crucial improvement was to do the cleaning better - pumice and a grey Scothbrite pad. And I baked it a bit hotter as well. Now I need to work out what to make from it.

Pictures are here:

It will astonish the world to hear that we've spent another happy weekend in the kitchen playing with metal. I did a bit of inlay, using a slightly made-up technique involving solder and hammers, and even had a first (and not very successful) shot at making mokume.

Pictures, for your amusement, are here:

Turns out the new plasma cutter is quite a bit pokier than the old one. It'll do 20mm, according to the man in the brown coat, and this pathetic 3mm stuff at 3 m/minute. Which may not sound like much, but it's as fast as I can steer. Cut quality is better, less slag, nicer in every way. Technology has moved forwards.

It's also *tiny*. It would fit in a pocket. Admittedly, some of my pockets are unusually large. Call it an average shoebox. It's a bit hard to take the wee thing seriously.

Time for some melty fun.

Turn on compressor, turn on plasma cutter, all happy.

The usual whirring of the fan from the cutter, a hiss from the leaky compressor, nothing out of the ordinary.

Press the torch button on the cutter.

A loud cough comes from the box, and a big puff of phenolic-smelling smoke comes out of its grilles. And the fan noise stops, and all the lights go out.

Bah.

There's a big burn on the main PCB. I don't really know if a component failed or if there was some high-voltage trackover in the dirt on the board. Will have to make phone calls tomorrow.

But, I've had it for seven years, and there are a raft of things I couldn't have made without it. It has served well.

I spent this afternoon out on the flatlands near the mouth of the Usk, in a strange near-empty landscape that's equal parts wilderness and old-school industry.

It's hard to photograph properly - too big, too flat, too empty - but such pictures as I took are are here:

http://jarkman.com/album/pylons0602/index.htm