The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Author: Ed

Danger Zone Earrings: Einsteins!

A chance encounter in the acrylic scrap box led to a radioactive einstein:

SCP Earrings – Radioactive einstein

That was so easy it’s gotta be either criminal or sinful.

A few test on scrap acrylic while tweaking the SCP warning label geometry showed only a few work well at such a small scale:

SCP Earrings – einsteins

The mirror in the lower right got cut from the back side, making it the mmmm mirror image of the others.

IMO these would look and cut better in 1.5 mm acrylic, but it seems edge-lit acrylic only comes in 3 mm sheets.

They are absurdly fragile across the waist, but my admittedly limited exposure to fine jewelry suggests durability ranks low in the selection checklist.

2023-06-21
Danger Zone Earrings: Engraved Trolase

Engraving the vector SCP warning label geometry into yellow-on-black Trolase reduces the handwork to wiping off the dust:

SCP Earrings – Trolase – engraving

The alert reader will note two missing holes due to an unfortunate oversight while rearranging the layout. One can adroitly fix such errors if the cut shapes don’t move, which is how it worked out:

SCP Earrings – Trolase

With the obverse done, another fixture aligns them for a branding pass on the reverse:

SCP Earrings – Trolase – branding

This is starting to make sense in a peculiar sort of way …

2023-06-20
Danger Zone Coasters

Scaling the vectorized SCP warning labels to fit 4 inch cork disks produces a stack of Danger Zone coasters:

SCP Coasters

I particularly like the Cognitohazard and Autonomous Object symbols. The Nonstandard Spacetime symbol comes in dead last; if you make one, use very little kerf offset.

Come to find out yellow is utterly unforgiving of smudges / smoke stains; orange is better, albeit non-canon. I cut them face-up through a layer of blue masking tape, which worked surprisingly well, except for a few areas where I didn’t apply enough paint: the chipboard fibers became one with the tape.

The cork disks arrive pre-cut with a PSA sheet, so using a jig for better alignment with the assembled chipboard layer would be a Good Idea™. These were assembled by feel, which is good for about half a millimeter.

A better process: cut an array of the shapes from a large yellow sheet, fit the black inlays from the back, stick the whole affair to a large cork sheet, then cut the circular outlines where small misalignments wouldn’t matter.

In production, it would make more sense to cut all the pieces from blank white chipboard, paint them in groups, then assemble everything.

Best: having me realize nobody else wants coasters.

2023-06-19
Honest, It Fell Off the Truck

A white pickup from a local landscaping company pulled onto Raymond Avenue well ahead of me:

Pickup Truck Drill Drop – A

Although it’s not obvious to you, something seemed wrong as it pulled away:

Pickup Truck Drill Drop – B

A closer look:

Pickup Truck Drill Drop – B – detail

The dark blob turned out to be a carrying case for an industrial-strength drill:

Pickup Truck Drill Drop – C

Fortunately, there was no oncoming traffic and the drivers could all swerve around the debris:

Pickup Truck Drill Drop – D

I was hauling a trailer of groceries and didn’t want to stop, but hailed the driver where he pulled over just past the Hooker Avenue intersection. Unfortunately, he didn’t notice the drill was missing and proceeded on his way.

When I got home, I called the company to tell them what happened. I hope they got someone there before the circling vultures landed …

2023-06-16
Raccoons In the Night

The only reason we haven’t seen a standing raccoon is because we’re not awake when it happens:

Raccoons vs wheelbarrow – 2023-06-09

The glowing dot over on the far right is a third raccoon!

They are athletic critters:

Raccoons in wheelbarrow – 2023-06-09

Mary puts garden clippings in the wheelbarrow before hauling them over the hill to our organic dumping ground. Something must smell pretty good in there:

Raccoons around wheelbarrow – 2023-06-09

The wire mesh over the new plantings in the garden seems to be holding them at bay, but it must come off before it snares the growing plants. We hope whatever is in the fertilizer will have worn off by then!

2023-06-15
Danger Zone Earrings: GITD Set

Embiggening the SCP symbols used on the yellow vinyl-on-acrylic version improves their proportions:

SCP Earrings – GITD vs vinyl PSA

The black-on-white look come from vinyl PS atop GITD tape atop some transparent red acrylic, which looks a whole lot better in its natural environment:

SCP Earrings – GITD in action

Making those ten samples requires 15 minutes of laser time (mostly kiss-cutting the patterns at maybe 5 mm/s) and another 25 minutes of weeding and primping. I’m not convinced this is an economically feasible activity, but I really like the results.

Nah, I’m still not getting my ears punched.

2023-06-14
Danger Zone Foam Coaster

A small coaster laser-cut from scraps of EVA craft foam:

Biohazard foam coaster

It’s all of 60 mm OD, so not particularly practical, but it (and its predecessor, a complete botch) helped show the laser kerf in EVA foam is an astonishing 0.6 mm, when cut at 125 mm/s with maybe 30 W.

The white outer shape is the nominal size, so holes are 0.3 mm larger on all sides than the pattern. The tan inner shapes get a 0.6 mm outset (!) to make them larger, which definitely squared up the horn tips. The fit is snug, but another 0.1 mm might be even better.

The pieces stick to a 60 mm circle cut from cork with a PSA layer, which makes it entirely too bendy.

If you wanted to do this for real, all the patterns would require tweakage to make the smallest features about 2 mm. The huge kerf ate the 1 mm struts around the central white disk and the tan circles should clear the horn stems by 1 mm, so that’s just barely enough.

2023-06-13