Saturday, March 14, 2009

slingin green bling

More bling...
It all started one nice sunny day.... walkin down the tracks catchin some graffiti goin up



kept walkin down the tracks and stumbled upon some excellent green foam and very fine sand - knew it was gonna be a blingin day.



paid a visit to the job site to process some blingless rims that have some bangin aluminum...

if the small track hoe doesn't work...


Then use a bigger one.


Carve a few designs up


and crank out some bling

Monday, March 02, 2009

Inspeck 3d camera, Gaston & Wyatt CNC, and Monticello's doors....


The image straight from the camera with the bitmap overlay in place. Notice the beading visible around the horns....

The model as sent to the CNC machine - the beading is there, however some of the detail is missing... at 1/4 scale this translates in to less than a 64th of an inch... it should be ok



The doorway in miniature waiting for the freeze and doors to be mounted. The miniature hinges designed to open both doors simultaneously were created by hand here in the valley. These doors were designed by Thomas Jefferson and are in use presently at Monticello


The painted 1/4 scale model - notice the hand carved beading on the angle - another local artisan recreated this. Great attention to detail - it matches the horizontal beading, however includes the ~33 degree angle.

The unpainted detail


In perhaps a giant effort to get a great pic of Trevor - one of Gaston & Wyatt's de facto mascots - the Inspeck 3D digitization scannerfinally got cleaned up and put to work... The first pic shows the original image, the second shows the detail in 3d... probably need to put some polish on this, it's a start though... In the first picture (taken from a 3/4 scale model made by a local artist...) the beading around the bison's horns can be seen in clear detail - there's definitely some work to be done in the conversion if a full scale model is going to be usable, however for reducing to 1/4 scale (ie the final model is about 1" in diameter... ) and further having a layer of paint applied.... these models are quite sufficient. As they are carved in wood and MDF board the finest expected resolution should be in the order of 1/16 - 1/32 of an inch. In aluminum the results may be superior...


All told almost a dozen people came together to make this project a reality - here in no particular order is credit where due

Fred Wilbur - Carver of the angled Egg and Dart
RWA - Machine Shop who delivered the miniature door openers
Decorator's Supply - Supplied the Moulded Egg & Dart
Wes Leach - CNC CAD/CAM work
Mike Horan - Craftsman
Mike Saunners - Finisher