Categories
Uncategorized

Wood/Metal Hammers

Wood/Metal Hammers

While you may be familiar with my hammer-related work, I typically lean towards different materials, such as concrete, or paper, pixels, and plastic, or perhaps ice? And yes, of course wood

This time I returned to wood, but decided to give it a metal look. The above is a 12″x12″ sheet of wood with 1/8″ laser-cut hammers attached to it.

Screen Printed Hammers

The artwork came from Kathy who created it for a screen printing demo I did at Milwaukee Makerspace a while back. We made a vinyl cut stencil for the screen and then I showed people how to print it on a shirt.

Wood/Metal Hammers

I’ve used metallic paint before on wood, but I think a few different colors mixed together turned out well. I tried to keep things rough looking and was a bit loose and crazy with the paint.

Wood/Metal Hammers

Splotches were intentional, of course… I may try a few more experiments with metallic spray paint on wood. I think it gives a good look. I’m wondering if I can layer polyurethane or another sealer on top if it as well.

Wood/Metal Hammers

Categories
Uncategorized

Anodizing things…

Bracelets

I took an Anodizing Aluminum Workshop at Milwaukee Makerspace last week, taught by “The Master”, Frankie Flood.

You can see the lovely(?) bracelets I made. OK, they were my first attempts at ever making bracelets, so I don’t know that I would call them “lovely” but I definitely learned a lot about working with metal and the anodizing and dying process.

Temporary Red Sign

Speaking of dying metal, I brought in my own piece of aluminum which I wanted to sandblast and we figured we’d give it the anodizing and dying treatment. It came out a beautiful red color, and yes, I mean beautiful! And then…

Metal Sign

I took the piece home to seal it, as it would not fit in the sealing bath we had at the space, and I tried to boil it, but… all the red came off! It may been because I used tap water, and/or because I didn’t get the water fully boiling before putting the piece in. There are a few reddish stains, but it’s definitely not red anymore.

Not a huge deal… While the sign did look great, it’s all a learning process. I’ll just make another one. That’s the beauty of making things. You learn how to do something, and it becomes a repeatable process, with the ability to refine and improve it each time.

Categories
Uncategorized

The Aluminum Velociraptor

Velociraptor Silhouette

I’m not an expert on dinosaurs, but the velociraptor is one of the more respected of their ilk (so I am told) and you really do have to respect such a clever girl properly, so I grabbed this velociraptor silhouette from OpenClipArt knowing that I’d find a use for it some day…

Save as DXF

Since I can now easily cut things like paper and vinyl (did I mention I picked up a Silhouette Cameo?) I opened the SVG file in Inkscape and exported it as a DXF so I could import it into Silhouette Studio.

Silhouette Studio

Now, typically when I export DXF files from Inkscape for 3D printing or laser cutting I need to first remove all the curves by making them straight lines, like I did for my MAKE piece, but the Silhouette software doesn’t mind the curves.

Velociraptor MacBook

A quick cut of the vinyl and I’ve got a Velociraptor stuck on my aluminum MacBook… but wait, there’s more!

Paper Dinosaur

Since I also had a test cut made with paper, and there was some pink foam in the workshop, and we were planning an aluminum pour at Milwaukee Makerspace the next day, I had this crazy idea to use my drill press as a makeshift mill and cut out a piece of foam in the shape of the velociraptor. (You may remember Kevin’s FEAR that was made in a similar fashion.)

Mill Press

I jammed the base up into the foam so the bit was sticking all the way through so I could just run it and not have to lower it. I was then free to use both hands to move the foam around and cut it. (My jigsaw broke last year, but even if it still worked, I don’t think the cutting area of the blade would have been tall enough to fit the pink foam piece I had.)

Obviously using the CNC Router at Milwaukee Makerspace would have been more precise, but I really didn’t have time to do use it. (This was all pretty last-minute.)

Foam Dino

It worked pretty well! With the first attempt I used too large of a bit, but the second try turned out good. I ended up bringing both of them to the casting.

Velociraptors with sticks

For the aluminum casting you need a box, so we built a box and attached some foam sticks to each piece. We used a glue gun, but you need to be careful not to melt or deform the foam too much. I’ve been told that using the glue gun before it gets too hot, or unplugging it and letting it cool before use might be helpful.

The wider sticks in the center of the body are mean to funnel the molten aluminum down to the piece, while the smaller stick on the tail is meant be a vent.

Petrobond

The next step was packing the pieces in petrobond, which is a casting sand with oil in it. You need to tamp it down and pack it tight. (Somehow I managed to do a pretty good job at this.)

Cast Aluminum

Here’s the pieces fresh out of the box (after cooling of course!) There’s also a tiny bird up in the corner. We had a snake/worm shape as well, but somehow it disappeared in the process. Kevin (who helped me with all of this) then chopped my dinosaurs from the big chunk with a bolt cutter.

The Aluminum Velociraptor

And here’s my (mostly) done Aluminum Velociraptor! I’ve still got some cleanup to do, and then need to decide how to finish it, but that’s another project, and yeah, I’m already planning some pieces for our next pour in a few weeks!

Big thanks to Bret, Matt, Kevin, and everyone else who helped make this happen. It was an awesome event, and pretty amazing to show up with some pink foam and walk away with a cast aluminum piece. (Here’s a short video of the event.)