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Rugged Box Silicone Gasket Seal (Part I)

Here’s the short version, I used CHANGTIKEJI Silicone Mold “Super Elastic Liquid Silicone” to make these seals / gaskets for the rugged box(es) I 3D printed. There’s a smaller size available as well. I have not used it but it should be the same thing. Keep reading for more!

I’ve mentioned these Rugged Boxes before which are based on Universal Parametric Rugged Box by Rainer Backes, and the design allows for a gasket to seal the lid and bottom, and the suggestion is to print it with TPU, a flexible filament but I’ve been making a ton of silicone molds lately, so I gave it a go. And it worked!

Here’s the box with the seal rendered in orange…

You can export each part separately, so here’s the seal on its own. Again, you could print this in TPU, but the TPU I’ve tried isn’t very soft or flexible, so why not try silicone?

I make a little frame and differenced out the seal (after filliping it upside down) and then I printed it.

Here’s the print. (And another frame for another box off to the side. The silicone doesn’t stick to the PLA plastic so it peeled right out. I should note two things. First, I should have done the silicone pour on an even surface. In the past I’ve used a level and shimmed up a piece of flat stock to make sure the mold is nice and level so the silicone fills the mold without unevenness.

Second, I don’t have a photo of this, but after the silicone was set I grabbed a razor blade and scraped it across the top to clear off any little overflow strings and give a nice clean edge to the casting.

Here’s the seal in place after the silicone was fully cured. This CHANGTIKEJI “Super Elastic Liquid Silicone” is very soft and rubbery, which is a good thing, but it may not be the best thing… I sort of wish there was a way to “glue” it into place, but you can’t exactly glue silicone, because it doesn’t really stick to anything! I do have an idea for that…

I think next time I’ll make the mold slightly smaller so there is some stretch when placing it into the slot of the box. The one thing I don’t like with this one is that it easily falls out. If this is a box you open a lot you’ll probably get annoyed with it falling out on occasion. On the other hand, if this box is outside and rarely opened, it would probably be fine.

You’ll notice that there is a nice layer of silicone showing between the lid and the bottom of the box. There is a parameter named TSealHeight and while it is set to 0 for a default, I tried it at 1 for this box. So the seal has a “T” shape profile to it. I think next time I’ll try the 0 value again which will make the seal thinner and it should not even be seen when the box is closed.

Anyway, this was a great experiment, and very successful! I’m working on an outdoor box next, and a good seal will be important. I’ll most likely use ASA or PETG instead of PLA for the next one.

If you try this using the silicone I mentioned let me know how you get on. (My daughter originally bought some for a school project and I ended up liking it and ordering my own.) I’ve used Smooth-On silicone in the past and it’s worked well sometimes and not as well other times, that could be due to the scale I was using at the time. This stuff is a 1:1 ratio and when we measured in grams it worked great. We even did some large pours and measure in ounces (not as accurate) and it turned out just fine.

See Also: Rugged Box Silicone Gasket Seal (Part II) and Rugged Box Silicone Gasket Seal (Part III).

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Bern Major MIPS Bike Helmet

I got a new helmet. My old helmet (as seen here) was probably 17 years old and when I asked how often a helmet should be replaced people told me every 3 to 5 years! (And yes, I do know that if you are in a crash and your helmet sustains any impact it should be replaced.)

So yay, new helmet! I was looking at the Bern helmets because a friend of mine used to have one and I remember a nice brim on the front. Since I ride early in the morning I occasionally get blinded by the rising sun, and I typically just tilt my head way down and stare at the road, but I figured trying a helmet with a brim might be a good idea.

The photo above shows the brim flipped down. It’s really easy to flip it up or down with one hand while riding.

I head read about this MIPS thing for helmets and it seemed like a good feature, and this Bern Major helmet has it, so hooray for extra safety.

I was a bit unsure about size… I should note I did not try this on at a LBS but did order it online directly from Bern. My head measurement came in just at the top end of Medium, so I ended up going with Large just to be safe. I don’t know if this was the best option but I went for it.

So when I got the helmet the fit was okay, but I just felt like it should have been a little more snug. I didn’t want to return it and get a Medium (though Bern does have a really nice return policy) but instead I grabbed a foam pad kit from Amazon for $8. I added two strips along the sides and the fit is much better.

The Bern Major MIPS helmet was listed on their site as a “Barn Deal” and was $65 USD. I got a discount as a first time customer knocking it down to $55.25 USD and then with shipping added in it went back up to $67.25. (So the discount pretty much covered the shipping cost.)

Update: I just checked the price in May 2025 and it’s at $97.50. Is it because of tariffs? Who knows!?

Update: I just checked the price in October 2025 and it’s back to $65.00. Pricing is nuts in 2025.

I’m pleased with the helmet. It did take a few days to get used to it compared to the one I had over a decade (oops!) but next time I’ll probably visit a local shop and try a few options. I really do like the visor though, so we’ll see if I still do in a few years or if there are other good options.

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Lino-Style Relief Print

I’ve been using this 3D Printed Printing Plates method for almost a year now, and one of the issues I’ve had is that most of the designs tend to avoid thin lines, and the reason for that involves the limitations of 3D printing. Thin lines get delicate because of how 3D printing works. (There are some workarounds but they are… complex.)

The other issue is that I really like the look of linocuts, including chatter, but since I am not carving away materials in a reductive process there is no chatter, unless we add chatter.

Here’s an illustration of a cassette audio tape I did in Procreate. Instead of drawing it like I normally would, I flooded the layer with black and then erased to get white, so this is sort of a reductive process since I am taking away ink (or pixels, as it were) which is somewhat similar to carving away materials.

I have not perfected this technique, and I think there are some good possibilities with it. I’ve noted before that I don’t carve linoleum for a few reasons, mostly arm pain. Besides that though, the digital to analog process offers a few great advantages. You can resize things, you can easily fix mistakes, you can make multiple plates since they are 3D printed (so iteration is built-in), and they are extremely cheap. Most of my 3D printed plates are less than $0.75 USD.

Once I finished the Procreate drawing I exported it to a PNG file, brought it into Inkscape, and then created a vector file from the bitmap file. Since this is a “rough” style of art I wasn’t too concerned with anything being precise, but it looked like a pretty good translation. From there I used the method outlined in How I 3D Print Printing Plates to make the 3D file to print.

Here’s a render of the 3D model of the printing plate. I usually use 1mm for the bottom flat part and 2mm of “raised” art which has worked well for previous designs, but I’m also wondering if I can get away with 1.5mm or 2mm for the flat part. It’s worth testing and easy to do!

The reason for changing the flat backing plate versus artwork ratio is to help those thin lines be a little stronger sine they would not be as tall. Hmmm, something to consider!

This is what the sliced plate looks like before sending it to print. I printed it on my Bambu Lab A1 mini 3D Printer which is a small printer and actually perfect for these small plates.

Ready to print! Here’s the first print along with the printing plate all inked up. I’m using my Provisional Press for this. I love the Provisional Press because it’s under $200 USD and works great for my needs.

Finally, here’s the print framed. (Yes, I 3D printed the frame.) I like where this is going, and will definitely be working on this idea in the future. I think part of what gets me excited is that I am still figuring this stuff out as I go, and there is learning and exploration as part of the process. Always room for improvement, and always new discoveries and surprises along the journey.

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Skulls (2D and 3D)

A post I made on Facebook while at Ink Curds:

Me explaining my process: “So I 3D printed a skull, then I photographed it, then I made a drawing from the photograph, then I 3D printed plates from the drawing, then I made a relief print using the plates… oh, and I made the paper with a 3D printed mould & deckle, and used 3D printed registration pins for the two-color print… I guess I’m a printmaker.”

Right, so the print you see above is a two-color relief print of a skull. Down below you can see the two printing plates. (Remember than I 3D print my plates.)

I’m not the best at just drawing something, and I almost always use reference images, and occasionally do tracings of photos. This comes into play with this particular print.

Back in 2019 I 3D printed this skull, which I got around to posting about in 2020. It took a while because I sanded it, coated it, painted it, and then (attempted) to weather it. Hey, sometimes projects take a while!

Then around February 2024 I ended up turning the photo into a two-color illustration that I could use to make the two printing plates.

So we started as a 3D file that was printed to become a real-world object, then photographed it and made it into a file. I then used that file to create two printing plates and printed it.

But wait, there’s more!

I also ended up using that photo for a digital illustration…

Ah yes, here’s a post about my Skull Sketch from May 2024.

The thing I really like about this process is that I used my own materials throughout the process (with the exception of the original STL file of the skull) and I didn’t need to look for images that I did not create. I will freely admit right here that I probably get a little too close with some of the reference images I’ve used in the past, and I’d like to get fully away from that so my own photos and illustrations as subject matter for prints is a goal moving forward.

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I would bike 500 miles…

Yeah, I would bike 500 miles… and I did! I started biking (outdoors) February 2024 and it is now November 1st 2024 and here’s a quick report. You may remember I used to walk a lot and I’ve done a bit of riding my bike indoors the past few years when I was recovering from injuries that prevented me from walking, but this year I got the bike fixed up and hit the road.

I’ve been using the Apple Fitness app on my phone & watch to track rides, but the stats are not easy to get to. Matt suggested RunGap which can import data from Apple Fitness and give a better view of the data.

Here’s the year 2024 filtered for Cycling and showing 506.30 miles. I actually hit 500 miles on October 31st, 2024, which was also Halloween. Spooky!

I can also see I spent 50 hours riding outside this year. I had attempted to get the 50 hours and the 500 miles on the same day, but weather and work commitments threw things off by a day.

My average speed so far this year is around 10 miles per hour. I’ve had rides recently that are 11 or 12 mph but I’m also fine with 10. I don’t have this craving for speed, but 12 is a good goal for me. I got into this cycling because I need regular exercise, and the walking got scuttled by injuries. So far I’ve avoided any biking injuries beyond some scrapes and chafes.

Breaking it down by month you’ll notice June and July had very little riding. Between work, travel, illness, and it being just too damn hot, I didn’t get out there much. October just got over the 90 miles mark, so 100 miles seems like a 2025 goal.

Yeah, I know, some people ride 100 miles in a day! I don’t think I ever want to do that. Again, this is a form of “casual daily exercise” for me. No races, no marathons, maybe some occasional group rides, but I’m here mainly to get my body moving.

I was certainly walking more than I am cycling, and that 8 hours a month should probably be 10 or more but there were some days I just did not feel well enough to get on the bike, and being alert and feeling okay are not things to compromise on when riding, so I skipped days here and there. Still, I look forward to what I can do in 2025!