Posts Tagged ‘ belt buckle

Four more buckles cast

Had a great afternoon:  Invited a bunch of friends over, we BBQ’d and I showed them how aluminum sand-casting works:  I designed (in Autodesk Fusion 360) and 3d printed (on my Makerbot Replicator 1) a new “sunflower” buckle for my wife, plus printed a few more forms so I could cast additional SHG buckles for a raffle at work (see my previous post on the matter).

Was my first try printing multiple patterns in the same flask, and using multiple (2) flasks at the same time.  But it all worked out great.  I don’t think I’ll make my millions casting buckles, but it sure is rewarding.

bucklesSmall

Other experiments included how fast you can cook a hotdog in the furnace, and what happens to a hotdog when you dip it in molten aluminum.  Both very bad for the hotdog…

New 3d print / sandcast: SHG belt buckle

Belt buckles seem like the perfect intersection of 3d printing and sand casting:  They’re relatively small, so they print quickly, and don’t take a lot of material to cast.  Plus, they’re mainly “one sided” objects, meaning you don’t need to split them for a two part cast, and generally need no special supports when printing.

As my first attempt, I used the logo of the company I work for, Sledgehammer Games.  Modeled in Maya, it printed in  a couple hours on my Makerbot Replicator (in PLA), and cast (in aluminum) with no problem.

It looks a bit warped in the below pic, but trust me, it’s symmetrical 😉

shg_buckle_facy