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Sean Flynt




Location: Birmingham, Alabama
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PostPosted: Mon 07 May, 2007 8:06 am    Post subject: No more waxes?         Reply with quote

Just imagine....You design your hilt furniture digitally then transmit the files to a 3-D printer at a foundry. The foundry then makes a mold from the "print" and casts your hilt.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/07/technology/...ref=slogin

-Sean

Author of the Little Hammer novel

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Hammer-Sean-Flynt/dp/B08XN7HZ82/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=little+hammer+book&qid=1627482034&sr=8-1
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Micha Hofmann




Location: Bonn, Germany
Joined: 25 Mar 2005
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PostPosted: Mon 07 May, 2007 1:13 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Happy Now that looks like a nice piece of technology.

Imagine the email from your custom cutler.. "Here's a ready to print smaller model of your sword. Please let me know if you want any changes before I start...". And it could really help creating a custom hilt for a production sword. This would create a lot on new possibilities indeed.
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Jon Kemper





Joined: 25 Nov 2006

Posts: 9

PostPosted: Mon 14 May, 2007 11:55 pm    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Sweet, sounds like my school's Rapid Prototype Machine (RPM). The RPM takes a 3d computer generated part and builds it layer by layer from polycarbonate. Some guy in the mechanical engineering department created a small scale fully assembled car engine with it. Sadly, they don't let mere undergrads mess with it.

I was toying around with the idea of making sword fitting waxes with it, but this makes that unneccisary, doesn't it? Making a mold would be as easy as creating your guard/pommel/etc in a 3d modeling program, and then subtracting that model from the inside of a block. How come I never come up with good ideas like that? Worried

I have a catapult. Give me all your money, or I will fling an enormous rock at your head.
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Mikko Remes




Location: Finland
Joined: 04 Apr 2006

Posts: 23

PostPosted: Tue 15 May, 2007 12:28 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

Jon Kemper wrote:
Sweet, sounds like my school's Rapid Prototype Machine (RPM). The RPM takes a 3d computer generated part and builds it layer by layer from polycarbonate. Some guy in the mechanical engineering department created a small scale fully assembled car engine with it. Sadly, they don't let mere undergrads mess with it.

I was toying around with the idea of making sword fitting waxes with it, but this makes that unneccisary, doesn't it? Making a mold would be as easy as creating your guard/pommel/etc in a 3d modeling program, and then subtracting that model from the inside of a block. How come I never come up with good ideas like that? Worried


I've used a machine similar to these when I was in school. I made a couple of models with it. Nothing sword related but I get to know the process fairly well...

The downside of using rapid prototyping is that it's still guite expencive. At least the laser sintering process the machine in my school used costed something like $50 (or more) per a layer (1,5mm). It didn't matter how wide the model was, only the depth. Surely us students didn't need to pay that much for the educational use... But it was quite expencive nevertheles.

Should the model be used in lost wax cast, there was still a lot of work to be done as the model consists from layer (as I stated earlier) and the surface of the model resebles that of a roughly sandblasted wood. Therefore the model still needed to be smoothened with putty and sandpaper.

There are other rapid prototyping methods (other than laser sintering, I mean), which I'm not that familiar with. For the little I have read about them, there is a method that idustrial jewelers use. It makes the model out of wax. I quess that could prove quite useful for industrial sword makers as the cost of the process eventualy reduces.

Here's some additional info:
http://www.eos.info/products.html?L=1

It seems that they came up with a machine that prints solid metal models out of powdered metal... Sound like the movie 5th Element. =)

-mr

Hakkaa päälle!
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Steve Grisetti




Location: Washington DC metro area, USA
Joined: 01 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Sat 19 May, 2007 8:03 am    Post subject:         Reply with quote

This was only a matter of time. Potential benefits - less handwork, tighter tolerances, better overall quality of castings, and eventually lower cost. On the other hand, less handwork will also mean more loss of those artisan skills that are already rare, and less 'personality' in production pieces.
"...dismount thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful, and deadly."
- Sir Toby Belch
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