Complex Facets with Move Command in Fusion 360

What if you want more complex faceting than the basic technique provides. Well there is a simple way to add complexity and visual interest to the shapes you just created. Just tilt some of the facets with the rotation feature of the MOVE command.

Start by creating a faceted gem using the techniques described in the first tutorial. Sketch a polygon and extrude it with a negative taper angle. In the examples below, we use an eight sided shape (octagon).

Now open the MOVE Command and:

• Set the MOVE OBJECT type to FACES. 
• Select the "All-In-One" option as the MOVE TYPE. 

Select one of the faces of the shape and pick a point on the face. Fusion 360 will try to snap to certain points like the middle or ends of edges or the center of the face. Each point will allow you to change the faces in different ways, but there are a few that work well.

Make Faceted Gems in Fusion 360

Faceted gem shapes look very complex, but they can be simple to create in Fusion 360 if you know a few techniques. With these tips you can create simple jewelry, forms for casting, frames for furniture and gem shaped stained glass planters.

Simple and Easy Two Step Technique

It only takes a couple of steps to create a faceted gem shape in Fusion 360.
Read the Tutorial >>>

Tilting Faces with the Move Command

You can take the gem you made with the basic technique and continue to modify it. Using a clever technique with the MOVE command, and maybe some parameters

Simplest Way to Make a Faceted Gem in Fusion 360

(1) SKETCH a POLYGON 

Start a SKETCH and under CREATE, select the POLYGON option. The Circumscribed and Inscribed options work well. Set the number of sides. Click OK when done, then click FINISH SKETCH to exit the sketch mode.

Sketch a POLYGON.

(2) EXTRUDE with NEGATIVE TAPERS

Make the TOP: Select the EXTRUDE command. Click on the polygon sketch and pull the extrusion upward to create the top part of the gem. Set the TAPER ANGLE to a negative value. Smaller values will leave a flat top on the gem, higher values will

Shell Inside Outside in Fusion 360

The SHELL command lets you choose the direction of the shelling action - INSIDE or OUTSIDE. If you choose INSIDE then it puts the walls along the inside of the existing shape and maintains the existing exterior surface shape.

If you choose OUTSIDE then Fusion will add a wall outside of the existing shape and the original geometry will become the hollow interior. This is useful for making casting molds or to maintain clearance when designing cases and enclosures.

To understand the difference between the two options, start with

Putty, Primer or Paint - Finishing 3d Prints

I am learning how to smooth and finish 3d prints so I can cast molds from them. With single use prints I never needed to do more than a light sanding and maybe some paint. But when you start making expensive silicone molds from them, and then making multiple copies, well you want the printed object to look good. Having a hundred copies of a defective print isn't cool.

I did a lot of research and got lots of conflicting advice about what is the best way to finish prints. So I tried a lot of different materials and came to my own conclusions. I decided there is no one best solution, and I need to use the appropriate tool for the job. Jeesh, I should have known that to begin with. I use different hammers and saws for jewelry, carpentry and demolition - why would post processing 3d prints be any different?

Most of my prints are in PLA. So I do a lot of sanding - a LOT of sanding - then more sanding. Unfortunately, the sanding process removes so much material it also changes the dimensions and contours of the object. So now I'm learning to put back material after I sand.

In fact, all of these materials seem to actually increase, not decrease, the amount of sanding I do.

I still don't know much about the finishing process, but I wanted to post a little about my current preferences in materials. I think of these materials as falling into three categories: Putty, Primer and Paint. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and I'm starting to use more than one material on a print to get the results I want.

PUTTY: I call it putty if it is so thick that I have to spread with a trowel. Anything that sticks to PLA, does not shrink when it dries and is sandable to a smooth finish is okay for me. Bondo, epoxy putty, spackle, wood putty all seem to work. I mostly use putty to fill in large gaps, joints or depressions. I do not use it for smoothing large surfaces. It is also good for making detailed creases, folds and sharp edges. If you have lost the sharp corner due to sanding, putty can help get it back.

PRIMER: I mostly use spray primer. Regular, sandable auto-body primer is fine. It covers large areas quickly and can be sanded to a smooth finish. It can cover medium sized gaps and cracks. But it tends to float on top of small cracks, not sink into them. You can hide print lines quickly, but it does change the dimensions slightly. This is my favorite for large surfaces.

PAINT: On really good prints I can paint-sand-paint a good finish quickly. Auto body spray paint works well. However, I also use nail polish as paint, especially in highly detailed areas. And the XTC 3d product works very well. Even when I use putty or primer as the first coat, I often finish the print with a final coat of paint.

Every material has its own advantages and disadvantages. Putty fills big gaps but is bad for fine fishes. Spray primer covers large areas quickly but tends to ride on the surface without really filling the gaps. paints and epoxies like nail polish or XTC 3d are great for quickly covering print lines and for final finishes. Don't be afraid to combine the materials - and there is still going to be a lot of sanding involved.

No matter what you use there will still be a lot of sanding involved. And the techniques I use to make a master cast for molding might not be durable enough for something like a toy or case. But that's really why I'm starting to learn how to cast copies - durability and quick production.

I will post more about each of these materials as I learn how to use them better. I just wanted to post this to let people know you can use more than one material, there is not one perfect works-for-everything solution. Also, you can combine materials on the same project.

Right now, I'm experimenting with thinning nail polish and epoxies for "self leveling pours." I'm starting to get good results, and if I get it to work consistently I will definitely post about that.

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Skin Safe Silicone Rubber for 3d Prints

I needed to find some skin-safe and food-safe silicone casting material for my projects. I knew about a food safe silicone putty for making chocolate molds, but it wasn't sturdy enough to make cases and jewelry with. If I wanted to make wearable electronic sensors and jewelry, then I needed to find a pourable liquid version that would be safe to wear next to the skin for hours.

Sure, I can design and 3d print a case - been doing it for a while. But the surfaces are rough, they aren't very flexible, and I don't trust the plastics. I've read too many stories about rashes and reactions to mystery plastics. I wanted something that I could wear and that I felt safe giving to other people to wear, something that wasn't rough or toxic or irritating to the skin.

Think of Fit-Bit cases, Swatch watchbands, Croc shoes or even that Cosplay costume that you wear to every convention. I'm okay with a few VOCs and weird plastics touching my skin occasionally. But if I'm going to wear a product all day, seven days a week then I want to know it's safe. And I want my customers to be safe. So, I did some research and wound up finding the same company I've used for years.

I've used Smooth-On casting plastics for years, (affiliate) but I found out they also make a huge line of other products including a wide selection of food and skin safe silicones. They all have special characteristics that make them good for wearing next to the skin and some for making food with. And they all make good molds for casting resin in, so I could always use them for producing other items.

So, I made a quick list of the various food/skin safe materials (NOTE: Food-safe and Skin-safe are not the same thing.)

Using Fusion 360 for Technical Illustration

Found another way to (mis)use Fusion 360... making quick technical sketches. Fusion is incredibly powerful and I use it to create complex structures. Most get 3d printed or sent to the CNC. But this time I just needed to illustrate a simple repair project.

The illustrations were for my How to Fix Venetian Blinds tutorial over on Instructables. Nothing needed to be 3d printed, machined or manufactured. I just needed a way to show what the existing objects looked like and illustrate some hand-done repairs..

In the past I would have used a graphic design software like Illustrator or Inkscape. But as I was thinking about how I could do the drawing, I realized something... I could do it quicker and easier in Fusion 360. (Especially the screw threads)

This might not seem like a big deal, but it's the first time a 3d modeling program was easier to use than a vector drawing program. It always bugged me that I could do incredibly complex things with 3d software, but the simplest drawings worked better in an artists software. I often had to redraw a 3d design in 2d to illustrate a point.

Drawing this design, complete with threads and bent metal wire, only took a few minutes. Making a section through the solid 3d object took mere seconds. Getting this quality in a drawing using Illustrator would have taken me an hour or more.

I think the drawing illustrates the concept a lot better than a photograph of the real object.

With Fusion, I could draw complex geometry like screw threads, apply materials and textures, create a perspective view and a cutaway... all in a matter of minutes. I could explore lots of different views in seconds instead of doing a separate drawing for each view. It would have taken me an hour to do a single drawing in Illustrator, a full day to do multiple drawings. With Fusion, I basically drew one object and "looked at it differently" to create several new drawings. Fusion was a huge time saver.. 

This illustration took a few minutes and has a perspective view of a screw thread and multiple material textures.

But I think a simple photograph illustrated the concept and process just as well as the drawing.

Some of the drawings really helped clarify the process and relationships. Other drawings were not significantly better than a photo of the actual object or process. But having the option to choose (or to include both) with just a few minutes extra work made the entire project simpler.

Fusion 360 will never replace Illustrator or even Inkscape for most applications. But I'm really happy that I have free access to a program that allows me to create sophisticated technical sketches so quickly. And when you combine the powers of Fusion and Illustrator you could do some very helpful drawings. So I'm really happy.

Check out all of our Fusion 360 Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

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EL-Wire plus 3d Printed Bracelet Project

Found some pics of an early jewelry experiment combining EL-Wire and 3d printing. This bangle, or maybe a bracelet, has got to be one of the simplest designs I've done with this combination of technologies, but it's still effective.

There is very little non-structural plastic in the design. That's not usually an important consideration in my jewelry making ---  in fact, I get way too elaborate with both structure and decoration.

The EL-wire loses some of linear appearance thanks to the undulating repeating pattern

But when I design something as a 3d print I tend to think more like an engineer. So the simple design is pleasing to me because it means I found a basic concept that works. I like it when the most basic form works with no extra parts or decoration needed.

Or maybe I'm just happy because I like it even without a single gear or wing or key or even an antiqued brass raven skull. Not everything has to be Steampunk.

This first-test version is a simple sine-wave-shaped 3d print. The EL-wire runs through a series of holes in the center of the wave faces. This holds the EL-wire in place with friction. And it breaks up the linear shape of EL-wire visually.

The EL-wire runs down the center of the sine wave shaped 3d-printed bracelet.

It's also textured and bright enough (bright pink plastic) to look fun and read well in daylight. It's comfortable to wear and durable. Not bad for a first test of concept.

(Also check out my EL-wire party night light project)

I know these early devstage pics aren't the best, so I'll try to find the actual objects again and grab some better images soon.

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3d Printed Door Handle Extension

Making useful and functional parts was a big reason for me getting a 3d printer. I made this door handle extension in a few minutes and thought it was such a good example of the power of 3d printing that I would share it.

I even wrote a short INSTRUCTABLE tutorial on it.

I know I post about a lot of fun 3d printed stuff ( like bikini tops or shadow casters or even jewelry ) but I also design a lot of stuff for everyday use. You know, the boring replacement knobs or obscure parts for outdated equipment. Most of the time I think it's so boring I don't bother to post about it.

After all, you can buy a new knob cheap, and who wants to spend three hours designing a replacement part for an almost dead power tool anyways? But people seem to like this project, maybe because it's a brand new object instead of a replacement part.

Check out the Instructables guide - I put all the details there. If you like this type of project then let me know and I'll post more useful (if somewhat more boring) projects with 3d printing.

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My Cup Runneth Over - 3d Printed Bra v1

Support your local makers - I'm doing my part with this 3d printed bra. Yes, that's right... a custom bikini top bra cup designed in Fusion 360 and printed on a hobby level 3d printer.

Okay, so the project started as a hat. Think "fascinator" base or mesh ball-caps. I wanted to see how different types of French curves joined together when bent. I knew different curves could result in any shape from a cone to a perfect sphere, or onion domes to flattened rounded-corner cylinders. But I had never really designed something with a variable curving shape. Hats looked like a good item to test with. Little did I know.

So I started experimenting with curves and shapes and bending --- and voila, I had my first piece of 3d printed lingerie instead. It not only  turned out better than I expected, I decided a 3d printed bikini top is way more useful and fun than a hat anyways - pretty happy with this failure discovery.

Bright pink bikini bra cup printed on a 3d printer and designed in Fusion 360. It's a bit of over designing, but it sure was fun.

I've been experimenting with heat-shaping 3d printed panels recently. Sure, I can print the model pre-shaped, an all in one standalone print. I could have easily printed this object pre-bent and ready to wear. But as I discovered when printing my mini-terrarium greenhouse, it's sometimes a lot quicker to print flat objects and assemble them.

My first experiment with heat-forming 3d-prints was a simple bowl made from a flat 3d-printed sheet, which turned out okay. Good enough that I wanted to try something more complex.

The bowl shaping experiment relied on the patterns within the perforations to allow deformation when heated. The corners in the pattern are arranged so that the surface can bend in three dimensions without significantly changing the structure. That technique worked fine, so I wanted to add a second variable to better control the shape.

I know a little about traditional pattern making for clothes. I also have some experience shaping and heat-forming foam panels into costumes and props for cosplay. So I figured heat shaping PLA wouldn't be that much different.

I also wanted to use this series of tests to better understand just how curves affect the final shape. I have Fusion 360 and Meshmixer and several other programs that could take the final shape and create a cutting pattern for me.

(I had to print a couple of quick failed experiments before I remembered that I needed to use those traditional pattern making skills though. Not always the smartest cookie on the shelf.)

But the software makes most of the decisions when I use those techniques, and I really wanted to understand how to do it manually. I think when I understand pattern making better I can probably force or at least suggest settings for the programs to give me better patterns.

This is the first experiment that gave me the smoothly varying curves I was after. It was a very simple pattern, but it was also the first time I used splines (aka French curves) instead of simple arcs. The result is a lot closer to a single, flowing shape and less like the segmented domes I got when I used simple arcs and lines.

That's when I decided to declare, "This is now officially a bra." Well, half a bra... okay just one cup. But still, it's a much more body-friendly form than anything I had created before.

Also notice that the decorative-infill pattern is simple. It is NOT designed to flex and deform. That means this sheet of plastic reacts to bending in a manner very similar to that of paper or non-stretchy cloth. It's really just the way the two curves join that makes the final shape so much smoother.

If I combined the deformable-mesh technique from the bowl experiment with the spline-curve edges from this experiment, the plastic sheet should begin to behave more like cosplay-foam or stretchy cloth. Then... print it in flexible filament to actually make it comfortable to wear. That's the next phase of experiments.

And yes, there should be more experiments with 3d-printed fabric and clothing coming soon. But understanding the traditional methods of pattern making is still an essential skill. For instance, my 3d-printed chainmail is pretty flexible. But to get it to fit properly at any large scale, like a vest or corset, I will still need to create differently shaped pieces of the mail just like you would with old-fashioned cloth.

The pattern in Fusion 360. You can see the different types of curves on every edge. Sure, it's 3d, but the principles are the same as used in traditional clothing patterns.

So no matter which direction I go, I must get better at pattern making. Right now, I have my hands full just with this, but I can already tell it's going to be a fun journey.

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Making a 3d Printed Bowl with a Hairdryer

Fun 3d printed project with none of the technical hassles. People sometimes shy away from 3d printing because it looks so complicated. I wanted to make something simple that people could play with and easily customize, a little something that they could hold in their hands and shape with nothing but a hair dryer and some light pressure.

Plus, if people can touch it and control it, shape it with heat and get comfortable with the material, then they might be more interested in learning about 3d printing. It's not so scary once you realize it's just regular plastic that has been heated up until it can be bent and sculpted. That's why they call it "thermos plastic" after all.

Expando changoooo...  take a simple home hair dryer a to a thin PLA 3d print and you can shape it and bend it into any form you want. The best (and worst) of both worlds.

So you can see where the lines started to string and the lip got deformed, but that's mostly from a lack of control with the hair dryers.

I knew that thin 3d prints could be reshaped with a common hair dryer, so I designed a simple lattice that I could print really quickly.

I have played around with these types of lattice structures before. I've made them out of paper and craft-foam and even cloth. So I knew a few shapes and cutting patterns that expand nicely when they get deformed








I hoped that the 3d prints would expand and shape nicely, and more importantly, I hoped that they would hold there shape and remain sturdy once they cooled back down.

The paper and foam versions are fun to play with,  but they don't hold their shape when released. They collapse back into a flat sheet. It's fun to make accordion shapes that you can stretch and twist and bounce, but I wanted the lattice to keep it's shape.

So 3d printer plastic (specifically PLA) seemed like a good bet.

It started life as a flat sheet.

Then it got heated and pressed onto a sphere to deform the lattice.

And it worked really well. The PLA did stretch and expand much like the craft-foam, but it held it's shape perfectly when it cooled down.

There are some issues I want to work on. You'll notice that the print became "stringy" and the edges are warped. I printed the lattice so thin that the individual "print lines" acted as strings and I turned the hair dryer on high, so the strings became so flexible they actually got blown around by the air. I wanted them to separate and expand uniformly, not like a wild hair day. Even the edges got softened and deformed.

The fix should be easy. I can print the lattice thicker, I can use a lower heat and blower setting - or I can even put the lattice into a toaster oven and let it gently drape over a form from the force of gravity.

And I could make a simple frame to hold the edges so that they don't deform while the center of the lattice gets all rubbery and stretchy. Lots of ideas to play with.









This is just a simple bowl. But the same technique can be used to create jewelry like bracelets and necklaces. A more advanced maker could create hats and other fashion accessories. Those 3d printed arm and leg braces that you've seen, well they are often heat formed for the final fit.

And individual parts can be "welded" together to form larger pieces. So the brim and bowl of a hat could be printed separately, formed to the user's liking, then be combined into a finished hat.

More importantly, most people are comfortable drawing a flat 2d design. And they have bent various materials for years with their bare hands.

With this technique anyone can draw a simple 2d pattern, print it out in minutes, then heat form it into the shape they want. Once they do that, maybe they will want to start doing the same thing in 3d.

Just another way to gently introduce people to 3d design... muhahahaaaaa.

Also made a bra, or maybe a hat, with this technique.

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Slash and Run - I Think I'm Done

I've slashed several tee-shirts over the last few days and I think I've finally gotten this whole 3d printed template idea out of my system. Can't really call it a success in traditional terms, but I found out a lot of things. More importantly, I squashed a nagging idea from years back that wouldn't go away until I actually tried it.

I seem to be writing more about this failed attempt than my more complex (and successful) projects. I will return to writing about the highly technical detailed successes soon, but I just felt like I needed to document a silly project once in while.

I think it's because I know there are other makers out there who do the same thing. We all do it, follow an impulse even though we know it might not be the smartest design choice. It's part of the creative process. So continue to play with useless things, make bad choices and try to fix them. Because somewhere underneath, there's a reason you are working this set of problems - sit back, buckle in and enjoy the ride.

Okay, so the template worked fine. But it definitely wasn't worth all the effort.

What did I learn from all this?:

The 3d printed templates did work, but they are more trouble than they are worth

Any time saved during cutting was destroyed in the printing process. If I saved two minutes per cut tee-shirt, I would have to do a lot of shirts to make up for the hour of printing time.

PLA can be cut with a craft blade, and it will get cut after a few uses. Every template got nicked. especially after I started thinking "Hey, I got the hang of this." Not good for high volume, speedy production work.

The "clamping action" derived from using a top and bottom plate didn't help at all. A single template on top worked just as well. At least I cut the printing time in half,

Using medium pressure and multiple strokes of the blade made the cleanest cuts. Trying to cut the cloth in one pass only worked with the sharpest, newest blades - and then only sometimes. It was more likely to drag the cloth instead of cutting all the way through.

The cloth dragged and stretched even when I had a slot in the bottom plate. I had hoped I could puncture the fabric and slice quickly the rest of the length. It didn't work, slashing with the edge of the blade wasn't any more effective than overly forceful use of the blade tip.

Any line shorter than an inch reads as a hole, not a slash. Tiny, intricate patterns just looked like there were a bunch of random holes.

Any slashes closer than 10mm looked like strings. Using 20-50mm spacing made it look more like what I wanted.

Well that clean precision look didn't last very long did it?

Got reminded that tee-shirt material stretches quickly and the clean cuts I made quickly turned into a blobby mess after a short wearing. All that work for five minutes of precisely cut look - then it turned into a tangled mess.

Got reminded that simple slashed in denim jeans are not very effective decorations. Denim does hold the shape of the cuts, so you need to cut an "opening" instead of a simple slash if you want the pattern to be seen. The slits might open up enough to be seen after  a few days of wearing or a good washing or two. But actually cutting sections out to make larger holes worked much better.







After all this designing and printing and testing I arrived at some conclusions:

Cutting the templates with a laser-cutter or CNC would be much quicker and, using chipboard or metal, would result in a sturdier product. I knew this already, but I only have a 3d printer, so I used it.

Maybe I don't need a template at all. I thought it would save me time and it did, but a minute a shirt isn't that significant.

No-one cares about perfectly spaced and cleanly cut lines for the level of designs these templates create. These are simple shapes, not complex lace patterns. And the cloth distorts so quickly the improvement disappears after a few minutes.

Just use a pair of good scissors or get a rotary cutter. They will work just as well as the templating system did for designs that are  this simple.

So was this a failure? Absolutely! I wasted several hours going down the wrong path. And worse yet, I knew it was the wrong path when I started. So why did I do it? Well, history I guess.

Like I said before, I had tried cutting tee-shirts when I was much younger and I didn't like the results. They were sloppy and ragged. I wanted clean, precise cuts. I kept thinking, "If I could only create template it would be much easier."

That idea stuck with me for years, so when I got a 3d printer I decided to try it. I tried it even though I knew a laser cutter or CBC would be a better solution, and even though desktop laser cutters are cheap these days.

I even knew that the cheap scissors I used back then were not appropriate for cloth. Now I own good scissors and can easily make clean cuts in any cloth.

And these days, there are the new rotary cutters that slice through several layers of cloth so cleanly and easily even I can do it.

But you must understand, I had once had an "IDEA" and that thing had stuck in my head for a decade or more. I must bring it out into the open and battle it on the physical level or it would always be bouncing around in my brain taking up space and time that could be used for something useful.

So I did it.

Now I can rest.








So no, this exercise wasn't a failure at all. It was a necessary step for a certain type of warped designer-mind. I won, I killed the silly notion and I have proof of my victory It was a lot of work, but now I can move on to other ideas.

It wasn't a brick wall, it was just a reflection of something else.

And the project wasn't a total loss. I got some other ideas during the process. One involves open flame torches, metal plates and old jeans. Another involves heat bending flat 3d shapes. If either idea works like I hope, evenly a little, I will share the results.

My final thought - get a frikkin laser cutter if you want to do this kind of stuff - that's what they are made for and why they've become so popular. Slap a tee-shirt on the platter and cut out any shape you want in a matter of seconds. If you want to do a lot of tee-shirt and other clothing modifications, invest in the equipment best suited for it. 

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Good Enough to Start With - Cut and Run

I got something right on the first try, then spent a full day trying and failing to make it better - only to realize it didn't really need to be improved. But like most dead ends, I learned a lot of useful stuff along the way.

Last week I posted about a 3d printed template for cutting, slashing and modifying fabric. The design was a success, both because it was easy to customize and print new designs with only a few minutes work for each pattern, and because it actually helped making clean straight cuts in tee-shirts.

Not satisfied, I continued to think of new ways to use this approach until I reached the limits of the first design. I wanted bigger better, smaller faster, simpler yet more complex designs. Are you beginning to suspect I might have gotten carried away?

Sure, the template worked. But I noticed that any design with the slots closer than about 10mm started to create problems. Common tee-shirt fabric, being all stretchy and flimsy, was particularly problematic. It would stretch, gather and distort when the cutting slots got too close together. This really sucked because slashing old tee-shirts was the original impetus behind the entire concept.

I also noticed that very thin or slippery fabrics like sateen, or very thick fabrics like denim didn't always work very well. If I was careful, I could do both. But I had to take care to hold the template just right and position and lay out the fabric correctly.

A simple, first try success wasn't good enough. I had to make it better. I had a serious case of designer fever.

What I needed were some cleats or ridges and matching grooves to really clamp down on the cloth and hold it in place.

So I started a redesign of the entire template system. I spent half of a day thinking about it and drawing simple sketches. What if I put cleats or ridges on the surfaces, maybe add matching indentations to really clinch the cloth and keep it from moving.

I did several sketches like that. I got a feel for a way to draw the "features" easily. And then started thinking about how to automate the process so that I could type in a few numbers and the pattern would magically draw itself.

The first (successful) version simply extruded shapes up from the ground plane, the cut or joined the shapes to create two slotted plates. But this new cleated, wavy system wouldn't work like that. Now, I had to extrude on two or even three planes and somehow coordinate the origins and geometries across multiple drawing steps.

That was kind of annoying. I had to redo all my old work/ And, because I wasn't sure which, if any. of the new shapes would work, I  needed to find the simplest method of automating multiple styles of cleats and clips and waves.

I couldn't find any one style that worked for all shapes, so I wound up generating several different files with completely different automation strategies.

Getting a flat face to match with another flat face is easy. getting curved and notched faces to mate with other curved faces with varying distances between them, well that isn't nearly as easy. Especially if the surfaces curve in all directions at once.

Automating that process is even harder. Boy did I learn a lot.

Or what if I made the entire surface wavy - yeah, that would really lock them together.

I spent about a full day concepting then drawing and automating these new designs. I was getting closer, but also getting frustrated. Then I went back to look at the results from the first tests and realized something.

I didn't need to do all this.

Seriously, I'm never going to be cutting two hundred strips of cloth that are only 2mm wide. That's just ridiculous. Look at any example of slashed tee-shirt mods. They have a few (10-20) cuts and the strips are at least an inch wide, not a hundred tiny cuts.

This project was supposed to be about slapping down a template on a worn out tee and making 10 or 20 relatively straight cuts in a few seconds.

I had gotten carried away and was trying to create a process that would rival the precision of a laser cutter. Why do that?

So I stopped the design and tried to feel better about the day I had just lost to stupidity. It was probably the easiest part of the day. I did actually learn a lot, and any time you find new ways of doing things it's a win. If not today, then sometime soon.

There are parts that I can still use in this design. I can use some of the new ideas in other projects. I'm working on a metal and paper embosser where these techniques are useful. A lot of these ideas are also applicable for sliding joints for lids and cases. And this exploration helped me get a better grasp on basing multi-plane geometries off a single origin point.

So like most failures, I got a lot of useful information to use. So maybe that day wasn't a complete loss after all. Now I'm off to cut up more old shirts.

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Slashed Tee-Shirt with a Template - First Look

Slashed tee-shirts were all the rage a few years ago, Then they fell out of favor for a while. Now, they appear to be making a comeback with much more elaborate, commercially produced forms. I made a few attempts at cool fashion tees and got frustrated because mine always looked even rougher and more home made than they were supposed to - ragged, crooked cuts with even worse weaving.
Who knew I was so bad with a pair of scissors?

But I'm willing to try again. This time I made a 3d printed cutting-template to help me cut clean, straight lines for easier weaving and crisper shapes.

The cloth fits between two slotted plates. The plates lock together and hold the cloth in place while it's cut with a craft blade. 

The template itself is a simple idea, but I'm using Fusion 360's parametric functions to make the template easily customizable.

Now, with just a few clicks I can change the size and thickness of the cutting plates,and the size and spacing of the cut lines. I can also apply any shape to the slots.

Don't know how often I will personally use it, But I know some folks who are going through their custom-tee phase that might enjoy having these.

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Shadow Screen Basic How-To Tips

Dare I reveal the secret of shadow casting? People really liked the shadow casting screen I posted about last week. But it's incredibly difficult to do and requires super sophisticated yet extremely arcane knowledge of the underlying forces of the universe.

LOL, not really!!! Actually it's very simple and would make a great project for any designer wanting to experiment with basic 3d printing.

And as an added benefit, the screen not only casts very cool shadows, it also changes its appearance as you move around it. I've only scratched the surface of this technique, but I'm having a blast experimenting.

Sections of the screen darken and lighten at different times as the viewer moves around the screen. You can control when each section darkens in several ways. These include changing the size of the open slots as well as the depth of that section of the screen itself.

If you have ever twisted a venetian blind to control the amount of sunlight, then you understand all you need to know to create one these shadow screens. It's just that the scale and repetition of the elements made the project look complicated.

The same techniques also cast interesting shadows that change as the sun moves.

Basically, you create a grid of very thin walls. You control how quickly any one section darkens by varying the width of the slots and the height of the walls. There are other things you can do, but these two variables in combination give you all kinds of interesting effects, certainly enough to entertain you for a week or so and a spool of filament.

I have tried to explain the technique, but either the misleading appearance of sophisticated visual magic confuses people or I'm not very good at explaining things. So I decided to draw some diagrams to better explain it. These might help, or they might just confuse people even more.

Either way, they were a good exercise for me. I got to play with a vector illustration program again, and it forced me to think about how I was explaining the technique. I occasionally write a tutorial on the Instructables site, and I really enjoy that process and sharing with other makers. But if I don't practice writing and illustrating enough, I find that the process becomes painful instead of fun.  If I can figure out what I want to say and how to explain and illustrate it, I might even write a full tutorial on this technique.

So let me know if this blog post helps you understand how these screens are made. Am I on the right track or just confusing things even more?

I'll post a link to any tutorials I write, so stay tuned and keep making.

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Teaser for 3d Printed Shadow Caster

Here's a quick preview/teaser of a project (theme") I am working on - a 3d printed shadow caster.

A little fun with sunlight and shadow patterns.

The shadow-caster throws patterns from sunlight or lightbulbs. The shapes and darkness of the shadows changes depending on where the light source is. This gives a really neat effect as the sun moves throughout the day.

And as you walk past the shade the surface of the 3d printed object changes its appearance, so the effect is constantly changing.

UPDATE: Did a quick how-to and tip guide for this

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Mecha-style stand for Bose speaker Challenge

Just got accepted for the Bose Speaker Challenge over on Instructables.

The project was designed and rendered in Fusion 360. The challenge was to design two panels (on opposing sides) for Bose's Educational Speaker Kit for students

As  you can see, I decided to go with a Mecha look.

The kit comes with translucent panels. And the back panel has LEDs that can be controlled via a phone app. I tried to get the render to show the glowing effect. It worked somewhat, but I still need to learn a lot about rendering emissive and translucent materials.

The lonely speaker-mecha wanders the desert looking for student interaction.

I wanted a design that would appeal to young kids. The Bose Build Speaker Cube kit is designed to teach about sound, electromagnetism, programming and assembly. That sounded like it's for younger students, so I also wanted to make sure it was very sturdy and very stable. I designed a very wide base and made all the parts super thick. It should hold up to classroom use for several years.

I also wanted to make sure teachers could print it easily, so I made it a single piece per side. Each side can be printed flat with a minimum of supports. The shapes should print easily without anyone having to tweak the printer settings. Teachers have plenty to do besides getting a delicate design to print correctly on the school printer. And students should get an easy success on their first try.

I tried to balance the level of detail with an engaging look. There are a lot of strong basic shapes, but not much surface detail. The strong visual massing and classic mecha shapes should trick the eye into thinking there is more detail than is really there.

The mighty mecha is at rest now, but could suddenly stand up and walk away in a cloud of dust and wall of sound.

Hopefully, the wide base will make it stable for kids to play with. The speaker weighs close to two pounds, so I wanted to make sure it didn't get top-heavy and topple over.

I learned a lot in this design project. Even though I know the basics of Fusion 360 I found myself getting bogged down in the sheer number of objects. I might have made a mistake keeping every object separate until the last minute. That made the object list cumbersome to navigate. But I learned to manage them on-the-fly from the design canvas much better than before.

And keeping them all apart till the final build also gave me a lot more freedom to make design decisions all along the process. Of course that freedom (power?) also meant I could get distracted making (too many?) minor changes for hours at a time.

I'm waiting to see what kids and teachers think of it, but overall, I'm happy with the result - both from a CAD standpoint and as a usable design for young students.

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