Workshop Uses for 3D Printing

[Mike G]

Sorry, yes I meant rotation of the jig around the round shaft in your last photo, where the top face of the cutter is being done on the side of the wheel. And of course, rotation wouldn't make any difference as the honed face is at right angles to the round shaft.

Move along, folk. Nothing to see here......

 

[Dr.Al]

Track saw parallel guides:



STLs (and STEPs): https://www.printables.com/model/335945 ... set-makita

 

[Malc2098]

I went to the dentist today to have my mouth scanned. I have an uncontrollable gag reflex.

I lost several of my top teeth in a motorbike crash back in the 70s when bobbies were supposed to catch the villains at any cost. I got him, but it cost my lip cut off, both wrists broken and my teeth. My current denture needs replacing because of changes in my mouth shape. A while ago, I went to the dentist for an impression to be made, but due to my reflex, we couldn't get the upper jaw tray of goo into my mouth.

Today, I got called in as a guinea pig for the dentist to consider buying a 3D mouth scanner with the suppliers visiting with the hardware. The dentists tells them 'Mr James knows all about CNC and stuff like that', so we got on well.

The scanning wasn't without loads of gags (not the jocular kind) because the operator is required to watch the computer screen to see where is being successfully scanned, not the patients mouth, so my throat got touched a few times.

But the result was brilliant. There on the screen was my ugly mouth. Just for a laugh, I said to the suppliers, send me the STL file and I'll make them in wood! They suppled my dentist with the STL file on a memory stick.

The scanner probe is bluetooth connected to the computer, so no wires, and it is also the operator's mouse/wand.

The dentist then said he was emailing the file with his instructions to the lab, and guess what they're going to do with the STL.

They're going to 3D print the model of my mouth! :x

 

[Dr.Al]

In the customer demo area where I work there's an example of a big plate with lots of custom 3D printed titanium teeth - it always struck me as a slightly unusual thing to be showing off to customers, but I guess it's a good advert for the printers! Something tells me the cabinet opposite (which contains the Bloodhound steering wheel) probably generates more interest.

 

[Dr.Al]

A very simple 3D printed box liner:



The box I've just made is for storing earplugs and I figured that having a plastic liner might be easier to clean. It's a close sliding fit in the box, so if I decide I don't want it any more, I can just pull it out. The sparkly "Galaxy Black" PETG filament looks quite smart to me.



It's nice being able to make things like this in exactly the size you want them to be.

 

[AndyP]

Sparkly plastic, what ever next? Looks great inside that box.

 

[Cabinetman]

Testament to how accurately you made the wooden one, quite smart, looks blue but that’s cameras I suppose.

 

[9fingers]

How well do thin sections like that stay flat when 3D printed?
I could imagine the box pincushioning especially at the open end?

Bob

 

[Dr.Al]

How well do thin sections like that stay flat when 3D printed?
I could imagine the box pincushioning especially at the open end?

Bob

They're not going to match a machined metal part, but they're generally very good. I haven't seen much in the way of pincushioning on previous parts I've made.

 

[9fingers]

How well do thin sections like that stay flat when 3D printed?
I could imagine the box pincushioning especially at the open end?

Bob

They're not going to match a machined metal part, but they're generally very good. I haven't seen much in the way of pincushioning on previous parts I've made.

Thanks Dr Al that is encouraging- another item knocked off my concerns list lol

Bob

 

[oddsocks]

Its been a while since i've checked into the forum, so have a lot of 'unread' posts to catch up on, and this one has inspired me to make even more 3d prints for the workshop (I'm already on my 3rd bandsaw insert).
I've had my 3d printer (a Voxelab Aquila) for a couple of years now and have made many adaptors, brackets etc and a quite a few for the workshop, mainly to take my festool hose. The latest (last week) was a dust extractor adaptor to fit my inca router table fence. It works even better than I expected, almost zero dust left when using rebate cutters.
I have tried most of the common design tools - sketchup (from days before I had 3d printer), freecad, fusion360, designspark and finally Onshape. I settled on Onshape as it was easy to transition the knowledge I'd gained from many hours of fusion360 youtube videos and its easier to use!.

This design took me about an hour in onshape, mainly because I decided to model the inca fence first. I've got the free onshape license so anything I create is public..here's the link (if you have onshape you can export it, if not you can just view) -at least that's what it says!
https://cad.onshape.com/documents/b21fa ... 5118e97fbf

 

[Lons]

IThey're going to 3D print the model of my mouth! :x

Now that's something worth mounting on a plinth and leaving it to the kids in your will. :lol:

 

[Malc2098]

IThey're going to 3D print the model of my mouth! :x

Now that's something worth mounting on a plinth and leaving it to the kids in your will. :lol:

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Dave R]

You chaps! :evil:

You made me go and order a 3D printer. Shame on you!

 

[Dr.Al]

You chaps! :evil:

You made me go and order a 3D printer. Shame on you!

:text-bravo: :text-lol:

 

[novocaine]

You chaps! :evil:

You made me go and order a 3D printer. Shame on you!

zero sympathy.

mine is currently printing towel clips.

 

[Dave R]

zero sympathy.

Great! :lol:

 

[Malc2098]

:text-bravo:

 

[Dr.Al]

Yet another wall mounting thingy, this time for an Eclipse honing guide:

 

[John Brown]

I'd get one if it could print me some more wall space.

 

[Dr.Al]

Yet more wall-storage. I used to have my #80 hanging on a peg but recently I knocked it with a bit of wood I was getting off a shelf and the #80 fell off the peg and landed on the bench. Thankfully, it survived the fall, but I decided I didn't want that to happen again.

On the bench:



Safe and sound:

 

[Dr.Al]

I bought some 25 mm stainless steel screws and, despite buying 200 of them, they came in a plastic bag rather than a box. Quick fix:



With hindsight I probably should have put the diameter on the label, but most of the screws I use are 4 mm, so I'll naturally assume that if it doesn't say anyway.

 

[Dr.Al]

A fairly long print that took up most of the bed of the printer:



It's got four 20×2 mm magnets buried inside the print (I programmed a pause into the slicer after the first few layers, superglued the magnets in, then told it to carry on):



It brings a bit of order to part of the new tray I made for the lathe headstock:



My beloved metric-only Mitutoyo digital calipers won't live there most of the time (they're usually safely in their box), but it's handy to have somewhere close to the lathe to put them and have them out of harm's way. A lot of the other holes and slots are just intended for whatever seems useful at the time: the tommy bars, insert boxes and insert screwdrivers will probably stay there, as will the long-angle lathe file on the side, but everything else will come and go as projects change I think.

 

[Malc2098]

Nice.

 

[Craig Salisbury]

Im not sure how i managed to miss this thread, but after careful consultation with SWMBO, I have been told to inform you that "you people" are a bad influence

 

[AndyP]

You getting one for Christmas then?

 

[Lons]

Yet more wall-storage. I used to have my #80 hanging on a peg but recently I knocked it with a bit of wood I was getting off a shelf and the #80 fell off the peg and landed on the bench. Thankfully, it survived the fall, but I decided I didn't want that to happen again.

On the bench:

View attachment 1

Safe and sound:

Yebbut what happens when you run out of wall?

 

[Craig Salisbury]

You getting one for Christmas then?

There are now 2 things for Santa, a 3D printer and a shaper origin....although i doubt i will be getting either at the moment...sadly

 

[Dr.Al]

Yet more wall-storage. I used to have my #80 hanging on a peg but recently I knocked it with a bit of wood I was getting off a shelf and the #80 fell off the peg and landed on the bench. Thankfully, it survived the fall, but I decided I didn't want that to happen again.

On the bench:

View attachment 1

Safe and sound:

Yebbut what happens when you run out of wall?

Build a bigger workshop (I wish)

 

[Malc2098]

Yet more wall-storage. I used to have my #80 hanging on a peg but recently I knocked it with a bit of wood I was getting off a shelf and the #80 fell off the peg and landed on the bench. Thankfully, it survived the fall, but I decided I didn't want that to happen again.

On the bench:

View attachment 1

Safe and sound:

Yebbut what happens when you run out of wall?

Build a bigger workshop (I wish)

Dr Al's workshop really is a Tardis!!

 

[Lons]

Maybe 3D print a new workshop. :lol:

 

[Dr.Al]

Yet more wall-storage. I used to have my #80 hanging on a peg but recently I knocked it with a bit of wood I was getting off a shelf and the #80 fell off the peg and landed on the bench. Thankfully, it survived the fall, but I decided I didn't want that to happen again.

On the bench:

View attachment 3

Safe and sound:

View attachment 2

Yebbut what happens when you run out of wall?

Probably the more accurate answer to that question is that you add extra ones. These are two bits of wood (one is a single layer of plywood held on a French cleat, the other is two layers of OSB screwed to a joist) that give me more "wall" space:



Both have stuff on both sides, e.g. my collection of metal lathe tool holders (mostly home-made):

 

[Dr.Al]

I've got one of these Axminster work lights. They're really good and I took it away on holiday with me in June when I was trialling my tool chest. I had previously mostly used it by magnetising it onto things and this was the first time I'd used the clamp.

What I didn't realise until after removing the clamp from the tool chest is that the clamp has some quite deep grooves in it and these made some big gouges in the top of my tool chest

Thankfully, they've mostly come out with some liberal application of a wet rag and a hot iron and I'm sure the rest will come out with a quick smoothing plane skim of the top surface, but I wanted to make sure it didn't happen again, so I 3D printed a simple insert to protect the clamped surface:

 

[Malc2098]

Nice.

 

[Dr.Al]

Some bits to speed up setting up honing guides for sharpening (not that it took that long using a simple layout square). The debossed text is rather cryptic, but I know what it means



Glued together and festooned with rather a lot of magnets:



It gets screwed to a convenient cabinet door and can be used to quickly set the right offset, e.g. setting a Chisel up for a 30° edge in an Eclipse honing guide (hence EC:30°):



The magnets hold the blade in place so you can slide the honing guide on at your leisure:



With the set-up thingies on the left (which set the distance between Tormek support and stone), it can also be used for setting up the Tormek square edge jig (which I mostly use on a medium speed bench grinder with the Tormek bench-grinder mount, hence having two different wheel diameters on there - 200 for the bench grinder and 250 for the Tormek itself):



In case that's not enough honing guides, it works with the Veritas ones too (the number after the V is the Veritas jig position):



I'm currently printing a little rack to store the setting pieces:

 

[Malc2098]

Neat.

 

[SamQ aka Ah! Q!]

Go***mit! Now I really want a new ̶t̶o̶o̶l̶ toy!!

 

[Mike G]

You're losing the plot, Al!!





Slightly mis-leading as I don't use a secondary bevel on plane irons. I do the whole edge at 30 degrees. And I only use a honing guide on chisels in for total restoration.

 

[Dr.Al]

You're losing the plot, Al!!

That's similar to what I used before. It worked fine and this new version really wasn't necessary .

It was partly that I'd gone down the rabbit hole of figuring out all the maths involved in various different offsets for honing guides and partly that I was trying to find somewhere to have something fixed down as I kept losing the ones like your version. I couldn't find a flat surface available anywhere that wouldn't get in the way, so I thought I could attach it to the door. That would be a pain in the backside because of gravity getting in the way, but magnets sort that out nicely.

I also did it partly because I rather enjoy 3D CAD modelling...

Slightly mis-leading as I don't use a secondary bevel on plane irons. I do the whole edge at 30 degrees. And I only use a honing guide on chisels in for total restoration.

I do use a secondary bevel, but I'm sure it doesn't really make much difference in practice, it's just what works for me. I also use a honing guide all the time, although I did spend a while practising and getting the "knack" of doing it without. After lots of practice I concluded that it didn't save any time so I might as well use a honing guide (it takes 15 seconds to stick a blade in a honing guide, but the blade can move back and forth so much faster on the stone that it saves about 15 seconds in sharpening time). As far as I can tell, either method works fine, honing guides just work well for me.

This is a dangerous topic though, so perhaps best not to dwell on such things :lol:

 

[Mike G]

.....I also use a honing guide all the time, although I did spend a while practising and getting the "knack" of doing it without. After lots of practice I concluded that it didn't save any time so I might as well use a honing guide (it takes 15 seconds to stick a blade in a honing guide.......

I use a honing guide all the time for planes. Using the same logic as you, not doing a secondary bevel means I never have to re-grind, which I reckon is a time saving in the long run. I'm lucky enough to have a permanent sharpening station and drawer, so losing the honing-guide-guide isn't going to happen.

Sharpening isn't a taboo subject here. Arguing about sharpening.......well, that's a different kettle of fish. There aren't too many arguers here, though, luckily.