Frank
Thank you for joining us.
This is episode 65 of Amateur 3D Podcast, a podcast by amateur printers for amateur printers where we share our thoughts and experience.
The panelists this week are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends, Chris Weber, Andy Cottam and Kevin Buckner.
And even though this episode is airing as our first episode of 2024, we are recording it before Christmas because we wanted to.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah.
Well, we wanted a little bit of a vacation from the podcast to be flexed two weeks.
So we appreciate the listeners giving us that.
And I’m sure they will understand our reporting schedule and so this one’s not in.
Chris
Oh, okay.
So this one’s not being posted
Frank
until
Kevin
correct
Frank
until like the sixth
Got look at a calendar.
Chris
Okay.
Frank
Wow.
That was a good guess for not actually looking at it.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
The seventh, the morning of the seventh is when it’s going to air.
Chris
Wow.
Frank
Yeah.
Chris
Okay.
So I guess we’ll have our Christmas trees down and putting away all our printed ornaments.
Andy
Yeah.
Yeah.
I believe so.
Frank
Maybe.
Kevin
Well, the ones that…
Frank
I’ll probably be too lazy to take it down and it’ll be up until February.
Chris
And
until Valentine’s Day.
Hey, honey.
It’s Valentine’s Day.
Will you take a Christmas tree down for me?
Frank
No.
Just put the hearts on the tree, babe.
Kevin
I was going to say the ones that I haven’t given away anyway, because I’m, I’m planning on using some for gifts and white elephants and whatnot.
Frank
That’s probably a good plan too.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Yeah.
Frank
I should probably come up with something to print for white elephants.
Chris
Yeah.
I wonder if you guys.
If you or…
You or Andy have printed any ornaments this year.
Andy
I’m not.
I’m not really an ornament guy for printing out for Christmas every year.
My family gets together and we paint a ceramic ornament.
And so a couple of years ago we spent like $200 on a really good deal for ceramic ornaments.
We got them for like 60 or 70 cents a piece.
We bought almost a hundred of them.
And, and so we’ve got a nice selection we’ve been going through.
And every year we, we sit down and we each kid and me and the wife, we all paint one ourselves.
And then we mark it with the date on the bottom and it goes up on the tree.
And as soon as we get enough up there on the tree to where it’s overcrowded, we’ll pick a number and it’ll start being the tradition of, you know, people selecting the ornaments they want to put on the tree.
Frank
That’s actually a good tradition to build.
Andy
We started it when my, when my 10 year old was first born.
So we’ve got a whole bunch of ornaments that are done right now.
Frank
Whenever we travel somewhere, we make sure to grab an ornament.
So every year we’ve been adding to the tree.
And at first we bought, you know, when we first got married, we bought some filler ornaments from the hardware store.
And this is the first year we haven’t put any of those up because there’s been enough on the tree from stuff that we’ve collected through our five years of marriage.
So…
Andy
nice.
Kevin
Nice.
Frank
Not the least of which probably one of the funniest ones we’ve got is one from 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.
And it’s got a toilet roll or a toilet paper roll and the COVID virus on it.
And at the bottom it says we survived.
Andy
That’s awesome.
I really like that.
Kevin
Yeah.
We got a similar one for 2020.
I think ours has both of the zeros being replaced by toilet paper rolls.
Frank
What a year, man.
Andy
That was a crazy year, a scary year.
Frank
Not knowing is worse than, well, potentially worse.
I think that the fallout from it was the worst thing.
I wish I could go back and tell younger Andy, hand on the shoulder and say, going to be okay.
Don’t worry, you know.
Kevin
Yeah
Frank
there is…
Andy
That’s only because that was my family’s situation.
A lot of them didn’t have that either.
I guess there’s got to be a lot of respect for those lives who were lost.
Frank
Yeah.
There’s an ongoing, I guess he hasn’t asked the question for a little while.
I listened to Tim Ferriss.
For the first several episodes of his podcast, he asked the question, if you could go back in time and give yourself advice, what would it be?
Every time he does ask it, I think to myself, no, I wouldn’t go back in time.
I have too much respect for the time continuum.
There’s no guarantee that my advice would be, would have the right effect for one.
But for two, my younger self, even like a week ago, my younger self is too stubborn to listen to good advice.
So I’d be wasting my breath.
Andy
I would have the dates of the Bitcoin crash.
That would be my advice.
Frank
Sell all your Bitcoin before this date.
Andy
Yep.
Kevin
Maybe that’s what happened and that’s why it crashed.
Frank
Oh
Andy
yeah.
Yeah, but I don’t have all the money from it.
Kevin
I’m not saying that you did that.
I’m saying everybody else who got a tip from the future, they’re like, oh, I better sell or else I’m going to lose out on all this money.
Frank
What is it?
How would we even know if we were in a…
Chris
An economy crashing.
Frank
How would we even know if we were in an alternate reality that was caused by somebody time traveling?
Andy
Yeah.
Oh, you got a good point.
Frank
Speaking of time traveling, as our first episode of 2024.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Andy, have you done anything the last couple of weeks?
Is there any plan before this episode is going to air that you want to take action on any of that?
Andy
Well, I did have a nice moment with the 3D printer.
You guys know I really treasure a particular kind of moment when you have a 3D printer.
And that’s when you need something right away that isn’t a big print.
And the convenience behind the printer is just amazing.
My kids got some antlers that they wanted to wear to school for reindeer day.
And they both, the antlers that we got them, they broke and they flopped over on the headband.
And it was just, it was just one of those things where I had two crying kids because their antlers were broke.
And it just, it just hit me like I could 3D print my way out of this.
I just quickly drew up some little clips and then I ran them off on the printer.
They took about, what was it, six to eight minutes apiece.
I did print them a little bit larger plastic, but you know, you don’t need much and clipped them on and they worked perfect.
It was just that solution that was like, that is what a 3D printer is for.
Chris
That’s the great thing is you can use these, you can use these in the future for cosplay too, because it converts any headband into a grabber for whatever you want to attach to it.
Andy
Yeah, really!
Yeah, really.
Chris
I saw that and I was looking at that going, oh man, this would be a quick easy solution for when my kid wants to do something like that with herd headbands.
Andy
Yeah, so it just worked and it was just a nice 3D printer moment to have.
I loved it.
It was gleaming and running to the wife saying, look what I could do.
This is why we got it.
So it was just a great moment to have a 3D printer.
Outside of that, I did start working on a different project.
I kind of got a little bit tired.
I’m wondering if my sandworm project might be on a semi-permanent hold.
I just don’t have the interest right now and it might take coming up on Halloween again for it to come back.
So for right now, I’m just kind of taking it off of the roster there.
Chris
Andy’s deworming?
Andy
I’m deworming for a moment.
But no, I wouldn’t deworm.
I don’t have COVID right now, Chris.
There’s no need for a deworming at this moment.
But I did sit down and I was kind of playing around with a project for my kid leaning in his chair and how I could make a little alarm out of that to detect when he’s leaning or whatnot.
Frank
You did talk about this the last time we recorded.
Chris
Yes.
Has to Save is weak wooden chairs.
Andy
Yes, yes.
But so I worked on that a little bit more and this last week and I discovered kind of a neat way.
You’re just using a reed relay to have a zero milliamp hours idle time using a microprocessor, which is kind of cool.
And which is simple, pretty simple.
I mean, the sensor can throw the relay.
The relay turns on the microprocessor and then the microprocessor turns on the relay.
And then that way, when the signal from the sensor stops, the microprocessor is holding the relay on.
And then when the microprocessor wants to be done, it can shut off the relay and go drop back down to, you know, a zero milliamp usage.
Which is really nice because that means I can have something that will last as long as batteries will last on a shelf, which is kind of cool.
And even though the microprocessor I use uses about two milliamp hours to run, the relay that I use, the read relay uses 10 milliamp hours.
So at the cost of having to throw 10 milliamp hours during running, you know, while it’s running, I’m able to have zero milliamp hours when it’s not.
And that’s kind of a hard thing to do with microprocessors is go into an idle state.
I’d be really curious on how they do it with, like, remote controllers and stuff like that that are really sensitive to power usage, you know.
But from everything that I could see, I didn’t really see, you know, I saw tons of people talking about using MOSFETs to do it.
But MOSFETs, when they’re in their idle state, they do consume a little bit of power.
And when you want to just run something off of a coin cell battery, you know, it’s that little bit of power really adds up.
Yeah.
So that really seemed to work really well.
And I did find out, too, I was looking a little bit more.
I talked to you guys about me being able to find some button cell, some coin cell batteries that were rechargeable lithium ion batteries and how cool I thought these worked.
I didn’t know that they existed.
And these were the biggest ones I found were 2450s.
And I found out that you can buy normal 2450s that aren’t rechargeable, and they’re not any more expensive than like a CR 2032.
I think they’re about 50 cents a piece for those cells.
And they’re 600 milliamp hours, which is quite a bit of power.
So this project has kind of lead me into another throwaway battery source for low power stuff like this little alarm thing I was kind of playing with.
But after I got all this done, I even designed a circuit board for it and stuff like that and was kind of playing around.
But I don’t think I’m actually going to build the project.
I think it’s just been kind of a fun little toy to play with.
And to get back into using the PIC controllers I used to use all the time, the AT Tiny series PIC controllers, which are fun because it’s not like a developer board you’re playing with.
It’s just the IC itself that you’re playing with, you know, so that it kind of feels like you’re a little bit more rough in it, which is kind of fun.
But other than playing with that.
Frank
I had a thought when you were talking, and you know, hear me out.
Build this project, put one on every chair and make them different tones so that you can play the chairs.
Andy
I think that would be the opposite of what I’m trying to do here.
Kevin
Yeah, I think it would encourage the kids to lean on their chairs so they could make the music.
Chris
So if batteries are like made about 50 cents a pop, how much do gooderies cost?
Andy
Yeah, really.
Frank
Depends on the goodery you’re going to.
Like if it’s a chocolate goodery, it’ll be a different cost than a beer goodery or a hamburger goodery.
Kevin
And it also largely depends on not only the type of goodery, but where you get the goodery from because like, you know, you can you can get gooderies from Walmart and
Frank
different qualities of goodies for sure.
Kevin
And they’ll cost one price but then you go to Whole Foods and it’s going to be a much different price.
Andy
Oh dear.
So you’re talking about also about stuff that would be fun to do.
I do got another fish tank oriented project I’m kind of thinking about.
And that is the filters on my fish tank.
I’m trying to find ways to get out of some of the laborious nature of owning a tank and all of my filters have to, since I, okay.
So for people who have fish tanks, I use, what’s it called that, that fleece floss stuff.
Chris
That matting.
Andy
Polyfill.
Yes.
I use polyfill to do a filtration on my tanks on top of the biological filter.
And the polyfill stuff, it works really good.
It’s keeping my substrate really super clean because it’s all going into the filter instead of mostly sinking into the substrate.
It’s working really, really well, but I need to filter it.
I need to change the filter out about every two weeks.
And that’s just, it’s a lot because I got two filters I need to do and it only takes a minute to do but I was just thinking if there are ways I could make the filter have more surface area so that it would fill up slower and I might be able to get a month out of it or something like that.
It would be better for the biological filter anyway to not change it, you know, at that frequency.
Chris
Well, at some point you’re going to end up with all filter and no tank.
Andy
Well, one of the things I considered is I’ve got little piece, little plastic baffles that I printed out that I can stick in between the filters and to maintain the biological filter I usually have a.
So I got the stones on the bottom and then I got two sponge filters in the middle, and then I got a baffle that sits on top of the sponge filters and then I got some polyfill another baffle and then polyfill again.
And what that gives me as soon as that top polyfill gets, you know, saturated with gunk, I could take it out, throw it away, and then move the one that the polyfill that was on the bottom up to the top and put a new piece of polyfill on the bottom.
That way it’s still got a lot of the bacteria in it and stuff, and I’m not just completely replacing the filter.
But so the longer runtime I can get out of having to do that, the more the better the biological filter would be.
Although I don’t have a problem with the tank cycling at all either.
I’m just trying to, you know, avoid it anyway.
One of the things I thought about, you know, there’s a lot of filters when you see them they’re made out of like a V shape, you know, to be able to give it more surface area.
I considered that the only trouble is is the polyfill I use to keep it cheap.
I have it free.
It’s just a blob of polyfill I put in.
So one of the things I considered is maybe making taking one of those baffle pieces that I use and on the very on the side of it, near the edge of it, have it stick up so that I’ve got a vent.
So as soon as that polyfill gets corroded, the liquid could go through the vent and onto the next layer itself.
And then I can just put a diaphragm valve on that that takes a little bit of water pressure in order to open.
So that way it’s easier for the water to go through the polyfill first, but if the polyfill clogs, it would start to be easier to open that that valve and start filling up the next one below it.
And so I might be able to get more than one, you know, full filter used as the first filter.
And that way when I go to change it, I’ll be changing, you know, two or three out instead of just the one, but it would it should theoretically for every one I add, it should last me an extra two weeks or so.
So that’s kind of the thought there.
Haven’t done it yet, but
Frank
honestly
Chris
The amount of work you put into being lazy is incredible, Andy.
Andy
I will definitely spend thousands of dollars to automatically pick up that dime every day.
Frank
My brain keeps going back to playing with manifolds.
Where if you take the fluid that’s coming in and spread it out along several manifolds so that it’s the same pressure, but it’s coming out over a broader space, then you can target the whole polyfill instead of, you know, like having a stream probably closer to where it comes in and then spreading out from there on the surface of the polyfill.
Andy
I wish I could show you an old filter because it doesn’t seem to have an effect.
It does have a hole right in the center at the very top of the canister where the water comes in at and then the polyfill is within a quarter of an inch of that hole.
So you would think that it wouldn’t and there’s another baffle piece that goes in on top of that.
But the way the filter clogs up, if I go in there early beforehand, you can see that the center of the filter is more clogged up than the outside.
But by the time it’s completely clogged up all the way, the entire filter is pretty uniform as far as being clogged up.
So I am still getting the full use out of the entire filter itself, which is why I’m thinking about adding a second, entire new surface area, but just having them kind of stacked.
And to where the one will kind of clog up a little bit until it’s too clogged up enough to open up a rubber, you know, diaphragm valve.
And then that would allow water to go into the second one there.
And I imagine even though it would, because I thought about doing it in the center, having the valve in the center, but polyfill just the way it is, the way I use it.
I think it would be better if it would be off to the side and then have the baffle itself have tracks that kind of push the polyfill down on the next layer so that the water can just kind of, as it clogs up from the edge where the valve is, it would eventually cover the whole filter, much like it does on the very top.
But it’s just a thought I’ve been playing around with, and it would be, you know, it would be printing off the baffle piece, and then a TPU diaphragm seal that you could click into place that would take just a little bit of pressure to open up, you know.
Chris
And see where I thought you were going with this, Andy, was when you were first talking about how most filters, you know, have the ridges and valleys, you know, the V shape.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
I was like thinking you were going to print a V shape press to put the polyfill between.
Andy
I definitely thought of that now we’re definitely on the on the same track mind track here.
Yeah, yeah that that would, but it would be like pre compressing the poly, which would probably fine, but then I would have to add an entire new like baffle piece on top of it to press it into the V.
Otherwise, if that if you’re not pressing it from the top and the bottom piece is just the V’s, then the polyfill is just going to press down and be flat on top and it’s still going to be like a normal filter on top, you know.
So you would have to like press it down so that it forces those V’s into it.
I think that I mean just envisioning it, I think that I might be only get about like one and a half times the filtration, you know the surface area out of it by doing that.
Which is why I was thinking about doing one of these the valve to contraption things because even if it’s not perfect which it won’t be.
Most of the water will be going through the first piece of polyfill and will will be the first piece to clog up before the second one starts to fill up, you know.
So, but with that thought, I then I could just add as many as I want I’ve got quite a bit of room inside of these tanks.
So, I’ve got about maybe four to six inches worth of space to do the this kind of filtration that I can play with and right now I’ve only got two filters in there essentially that are doing this.
I could definitely make them smaller because when I pulled out the gross dead filters that are full.
The bottom of the filter is still fairly clean it’s only collecting on the top of the filter, so I can make them pretty the filters pretty thin with the polyfill and still have them be pretty effective.
So, you know, it was just an idea something I just haven’t sat down to try to print.
I’m just would take a baffle that I’ve already made, and on the very edge of it I would make a part that kind of sticks up that I could then squeeze a rubber valve into and make the valve out of TPU and then just try it and see what happens you know so.
But that’s, that’s the only thing that’s on my, my mind, I don’t know if I’m going to have time between now and our next podcast to do any of this and we’re going to have what our next podcast here will have two weeks three weeks worth of material from us, because our Christmas.
Frank
conceivably.
Andy
Yeah, and…
Frank
conceivably that that’s assuming that anybody does anything between now and New Year’s.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
Yeah, because it is also the Holidays.
Frank
… tends to be busy for everyone.
Chris
Well, as we said in our holiday episode there we have some last minute printing.
Frank
Well, there’s that.
Andy
That’s true.
Frank
I just shared an image I found online of a mechanical filter.
When the Navy uses this kind of filter there’s actually no medium in as part of the filter it’s all.
What is it you were talking about with the holes.
Andy
Oh
Frank
no.
Frank
So, so it wouldn’t it wouldn’t use the like that you could use your polyfill inside of the center part.
And that the water flows through.
When I’ve seen them they’ve been used for oil filters though, not necessarily water though it’s the same idea.
And all that this does all that it needs to do was pull out the the big material and the center part that the water flows out of is actually lower than it looks like in the diagram.
The water is forced down and then back up and the heavy materials that are in the water don’t change direction as easily as the water does.
Andy
Oh, is this this is a vortex filter.
Frank
Kind of at least not what I think of as a vortex but yes, how about that.
Andy
Okay, like where the debris gets slung out to the outsides.
Frank
This is not water in the middle, not like a dust filter that I think that what you’re thinking about is where the air comes in on the side and spins around a cone.
Andy
Yeah
Frank
and the debris goes down to the bottom of the cone while the air goes out the top.
Andy
Yeah, like what Dyson uses.
Frank
This is not that kind of filter this.
Baffle that’s the word you were using is the baffle.
So the water is forced to the bottom of the canister or near the bottom of the canister.
The baffle helps prevent the heavier materials from changing direction.
The water goes through the baffle easily and into the exhaust pipe.
And when you change it what you’re doing or when you’re maintaining it you’re pulling it out and you’re pulling out all the debris from the water that didn’t get passed on to the next stage.
Andy
Okay, so is it kind of like a sediment filter.
So things can settle out, but this is a little bit more than just like a settle out kind of thing it’s a little bit more forced but it’s still the idea.
Frank
The, like I said, I’ve seen it more with like a fuel oil or even just a regular lubricant filter.
It works I mean I found this just by looking for mechanical filtration methods, and it’s labeled for water, so it works it just.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And it’s not necessarily meant to be 100%.
But it seems like what you’re doing is you’re basically pre cleaning the water before it goes into the filters that you that actually purify the water.
So
Andy
yes, yes.
I’m trying to keep all the sediment out of the biological filter because like with fish tanks you don’t really have to worry about removing stuff out of the water, it will settle out on its own into the gravel, you know into the regulith.
The biological filter is is where you really need because you need to take the ammonia and stuff from the urine and get it out of there and you run it through two different types of bacteria.
The one eats ammonia and craps out nitrites and nitrates are also very poisonous.
And so you got another bacteria that eats the nitrites and craps out the nitrates and all of this is in the in the water as a solution.
So it’s not something that can really be filtered out very easily.
But and then the nitrates can build up without really hurting hurting the animals of unless they get extreme.
So keeping those that filter media the sponges is like a really great P place for the bacteria to grow.
So keeping the sediment from the tank out of those filters allows me to not have to clean those filters, which is good because when I clean those filters you’re washing out that bacteria.
Frank
Right.
Andy
Yeah, so the filter floss here is mostly for just keeping those filters clean.
But in turn with the way I’ve got it set up I’ve noticed that most of the garbage in the tank seems to be going through the filters and getting caught in there, which is great because then that means I’m not having to clean the regular nearly as much either.
But this this concept here is kind of neat enough to put that on the back burner and see if anything comes up with it because I would probably be able to build an insert into the top of the canister filter that would have an effect like that.
Frank
And it would be a lower maintenance approach too because you wouldn’t be changing out the polyfill as often.
Andy
Yeah
Frank
I feel there or at least you could just pack it in there and there would still be plenty of a if your baffle had… was not as tightly constrained as this kind of filter would be normally and you used polyfill for the difference.
Then you could probably go.
I don’t know you’d have to check on it regular until you got a good schedule but I bet you can go longer between changes.
Andy
That’s not a bad idea.
Just to just to get your opinion on it looking at your diagram here.
And so our visual listeners know he’s got a something that looks very much like your typical water filter your vertical water filter.
Water comes in.
Let’s say the top would be fine there and then goes through the filter but then water comes back out of the top, like you would see in a normal like under cabinet kitchen filter.
Do you think there would be any problem with taking the the center cone that’s coming up and at the very top, having another tube that would bring the water back down and out the bottom.
That way the filtered water can come out the bottom instead of out the side.
Do you have any effect on it.
Frank
If you wanted to change the direction of the exhaust pipe.
I would say up is probably better because your sediment is collecting at the bottom you don’t want your exhaust to be down there.
Andy
Okay, then that makes sense.
So what about after it comes all the way up it enters a secondary another secondary tube that will bring it back down the center of the filtered water tube to be able to bring it out the bottom.
That way you’re still bringing it up to the top, but then
Frank
kind of like a siphon.
Andy
It’s turning back around and going back out the bottom.
Frank
I can see that
Chris
As long as it’s separated I don’t see how that would change anything.
Frank
The important part would be the 90 degree shift at the bottom that’s where most of your sediment will come out.
So as long as it the water has to travel back up.
You know, every single distance from the bottom, it should be flying to go back down and another nested inside pipe.
Andy
Yeah, okay.
That works because the actual canisters I use water comes at the top and it goes out the bottom and it is a cup shape.
So that’s why I’d be interested in coming back on the bottom that way it could continue through the filament.
Frank
And this way it would require minimum adjustment to the system that you’ve already got established there that makes sense.
Andy
I might try to print something like that just to see how it would affect it because that would would all just be a 3D printed component.
Frank
To get a better idea for that kind of design that we were just talking about, look up.
There are some trick cups.
Mostly we’re created for like parties when you want to make fun of somebody that drinks too much.
Andy
Oh yeah, the greedy cup.
Frank
Yeah, the greedy cup.
So it gets too full and then it siphons everything out through the bottom.
It sounds to me like it would be the same idea.
Andy
Yeah, yeah, I would agree.
And that’s kind of the concept I’m thinking of.
Now the whole thing would be saturated with water so it wouldn’t be like a siphoning out or anything at that point.
Frank
And there would be back pressure.
The pump wouldn’t have to work as hard because there would be that siphoning effect.
It would only have to overcome the little bit of vertical before it goes back down.
Yeah, it’s an interesting idea.
I like it.
Andy
And I did swap out my pumps with pretty hefty hot water recycle pumps.
So I don’t have to worry about the tubes getting clogged up with stuff anymore because the pump is pretty tough.
It’s pretty strong water pressure.
In fact, when I let the filters go too far, that top filter starts to collapse everything else.
It squishes it down to about half the size just with the water pressure alone.
So as far as needing any amount of pressure would be good.
Yeah, I’ll look into that to see about how big to make the holes in the side for the right angles to see what works best and what not.
And go from there.
That’s a good idea.
Frank
Fun.
Andy
Yeah, thanks.
Frank
So was there anything else?
There, Andy, now that I have given you something else to think about for the next three weeks.
Chris
Fluid dynamics is hard.
Andy
It is.
Frank
That’s true.
Wait until I retake my physics for engineers class and start talking about the calculus of fluid dynamics.
Chris
Physics?
Jog is memory.
Andy
Too funny.
Okay, yeah, I think that’s about all that I have worked on or plan on really working on.
Like you say, holidays are going to get in the way of everything here.
And tomorrow or two days from now is the day I’m having the windows all replaced in my house.
And that’s supposedly going to take three days for that.
But I took this entire week off for vacation, so I won’t have to come back until the 26th.
That gives me quite a bit of time to do some 3D printing.
Frank
Daydream about the things that you’re going to print, if not actually do it.
Andy
Yes, yes.
That’s one of the problems I have.
I’ll go to work.
I’ll get excited about something and I’ll be thinking about it, making plans all that time, all that.
Burning off all that excitement energy for a project.
And when I get home to when I can do it, the excitement’s all gone.
This just turns into one of those things where I thought I thought about it enough.
I don’t want to think about it anymore.
Frank
I don’t have the bandwidth to follow through because I’ve been thinking about it so much.
Personally, that’s a me thing as well.
Andy
But that’s all I got.
Frank
Cool.
Kevin, anything this week?
Did you plan to through the next couple of weeks?
Kevin
Yeah, so I think I mentioned that I had successfully painted up the one mimic ornament and put on the tree and see how long it takes my wife to notice that it’s there.
She still hasn’t noticed, by the way.
And…
Andy
that’s awesome.
Kevin
… and at work, some of the ladies put up a little tiny Christmas tree.
It’s probably two and a half, three feet tall.
And they put some red garland on it and some red glittery ornaments.
And so I did the same thing.
I printed up another one of those mimic ornaments and I painted it up.
I put it on just this last Thursday.
I put it up on that tree and nobody said anything about it on Thursday and I don’t work Fridays.
So I don’t know if anybody noticed it yesterday, but I kind of doubt it.
Frank
There’s a very good chance also that they will assume it was you and just be like Kevin and then go on with their day.
Kevin
But then I would expect that they would say something to me about it.
Now, the really funny thing, though, is that since I had already put the one on our tree and I’ve got more of them laying around.
I’ve got two more that I’ve printed up that I still need to paint.
But I was like, it’s only going to be a matter of time before my wife notices all these mimic ornaments just kind of laying around and starts asking questions.
And so I headed that one off and I showed her the unpainted one.
And I said, I’m going to be painting this up and hanging it on the tree at work and see how long it takes anybody to notice.
And she said, that’s a great idea.
Frank
So she’s in on it, except for she’s not.
Kevin
Right.
But she did agree that it’s a fun looking ornament.
So I don’t think she’s going to freak out too bad when she eventually notices that it’s on the tree.
Frank
Best place to hide is in plain sight, dude.
Kevin
Right.
So the plans I’ve got for one of them is that I’m going to paint it up and put it as part of the white elephant gift exchange that we’re doing at work this year.
The other part of the white elephant gift exchange will be that I did print up the alien star that I talked about and Frank was right at the star.
The alien wrapping itself around this Christmas tree topper star does look a lot like the starfish alien from The Suicide Squad.
Chris
It would it makes cartoon Japanese girls lose their stuff.
Kevin
Anyway, so that’s going to be the other part of the white elephant for this year’s white elephant gift exchange.
And then I’m… um…
my older sister and her family came up with an idea last year called secret Krampus.
The idea is that you give gag gifts to each other, but it’s like targeted because you know you’re victim.
Frank
Okay.
So, so you’re not kidnapping children and leaving coal in their place?
Kevin
No.
Frank
Oh, but that takes all the fun out of it.
Kevin
My plan this year is that I’m going to paint up another one of these mimic ornaments and include that in the secret Krampus gift.
But the other part of the secret Krampus gift is going to be that I’m either going to get little corn dog bites.
Or I’m going to batter some Little Smokies and then I’m going to fry them and cover them in chocolate.
And have that be the other part of the secret Krampus gift.
See, I got my sister, my older sister whose idea this whole thing was and she hates hot dogs.
Andy
Oh, really?
Andy
Yeah.
I think it’ll be a fun surprise when she’s like, oh, I got chocolates and it takes a bite of one.
Chris
Maybe make sure they’re cured or smoked first so that you don’t have to worry about refrigerating them.
Kevin
Well, sure.
But also my plan is that I would heat them to a food safe temperature and then immediately coat them in chocolate.
So that would also prevent any bacteria from growing in them because it wouldn’t.
I mean, it’s essentially pasteurizing them.
So that’s what I’ve got planned for that.
Now, other things that I have done, I did do some work on fixing the FDM printer.
I went and I was looking to see if I could find the spare nozzle that I was sure came with it.
And I did find it, but I also found the stylet that came with it.
And so I styletted the nozzle that’s on there and ran some regular PLA through it.
And that worked just fine up until the PLA ran out before the little test print that I was doing finished.
I thought it was going to be enough to finish the little test print, but it wasn’t.
But no big deal.
It unclogged the nozzle just fine.
So then I started the centerpiece for this spice shelf again.
And it didn’t even make it through the first layer before it clogged up.
So I’m either going to have to wait until I get a bigger nozzle for this shelf thing to continue using this particular kind of filament.
Or I might also try just running a whole bunch of regular PLA through to try to get all the fibers out of the nozzle that’s on there.
Frank
I do have a couple spare 0.6 millimeters.
If we can arrange some time, I can drop you off a few and you can play with those and see if they help.
Andy
I think you would love 0.6.
I’m never going back to 0.4 unless I need it for a reason.
I think you’d really like 0.6.
Kevin
That would be helpful because the filament does say they recommend 0.6 or larger to prevent clogging.
Frank
And as far as using them myself, I kind of determined that I liked the smaller resolution from the 0.4 with most of what I do.
So not to be exceptionally contrary there, Andy, but most of your things don’t necessarily need to look pretty.
Kevin
Right.
Chris
Yeah, that’s one of those funny things where I’ve been using my 0.4 just because I’m too lazy to switch it out and it hasn’t been a problem.
If mine was to clog up and I moved to 0.6, I would still be lazy and not switch back until there was reason to.
Kevin
So actually, Frank, when you got on to do the play test with me last night and I said that my printer was having issues, that’s what it was, is that it had clogged and I was like, oh, I need to address this before it chews through the filament again.
Because that was a beast to clean up.
Because pulling, with how the filament had baked into the nozzle, pulling that length out of the Bowden tube was beastly.
I heated up the nozzle to a little over 200 degrees and then I still had to get pliers and really pull on the out end of that 12 inches or so.
However long the Bowden tube is and just really yank it out because it had formed a blob that was exactly the size of the inside or maybe even a little larger of the inside of the Bowden tube.
So it was tough to pull that the entire way out.
Frank
You don’t have direct drive it sounds like.
There’s usually a lock on the carriage side of the Bowden tube, just a little C-clip on the thing.
If you pull that off, then you should be able to pull out the Bowden tube and do whatever repairs you need to at that end.
And then you’re not fighting 12 inches of filament in Bowden tube to get stuff out.
Kevin
I didn’t see a C-clip on there.
And there is like the Bowden tube locks into each end with this little clamp that you press down, push the tube in and then release the clamp and it pops up and grabs on.
I couldn’t get it to go down at the carriage end.
Andy
I’ve had a lot of problems with those too.
I was buying a bunch of those clips when my system was Bowden and if I had to remove them, I would replace the clip and the Bowden tube too.
Unless I could shorten the Bowden tube because they’re difficult.
Frank
Okay.
Well, and Andy’s experience speaks louder than my supposition.
Andy
No, you’ve had a lot of experience with them lately.
And I think I know what you’re talking about.
The C-clip you’re talking about goes in between the release lever so that you can’t push the release lever down, right?
Frank
So that you can’t accidentally… yeah.
Kevin
That might be on there and I just didn’t notice.
I’ll have to take a closer look a little bit later.
But so when I noticed that it was clogging, because the original thing I got up for is because I had left my bottle of water on the kitchen table.
And with this play test, I do a lot of talking to explain the rules and everything and makes my mouth pretty dry.
And so I said, okay, just hang on a second.
I need to go get my water and then I’ll come back and we can continue the play test.
And then I looked over at my printer and I noticed that the carriage was moving all over the place, but it didn’t look like it had finished depositing plastic on the first layer before going on to the second.
So I went over and looked at it and saw that it wasn’t putting any plastic down for the second layer and that the gear was still turning, but the filament wasn’t moving.
And so I said, okay, I need to stop this right now before it chews through the filament.
And then so then I raised up the gantry and I styletted it the nozzle and then I lowered the gantry back to where it was or so I thought it the level indicator said it was in the exact same position.
And then I so I had only paused the print because one layer is not going to cause it to fail if it continues to print over that.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
But it wasn’t the exact same position.
It actually put the nozzle slightly into the first layer.
So when I resumed the print, it grabbed onto it and dragged the nozzle through the plastic that it had deposited and it shifted the build plate.
And I said, okay, I’m just going to stop this right now and be done for a while and deal with this later because I have a game to get to and I just don’t have the time or inclination to bother with this right now.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
And the three of us are sitting here going, uh huh.
Yep.
Kevin
I’m sure all of our listeners who have ever had to deal with this kind of a situation are right there with me.
Frank
Yeah, I will typically, especially if it’s only the first layer that’s gone down, I’ll just stop and restart the whole damn thing because it’s not worth.
Kevin
Yeah, for me…
Chris
it’s easier just to scrape off the first layer and start again.
Kevin
But it’s, with how textured my bed is, getting that first layer off is beastly.
Frank
There’s that.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Um, maybe that would affect my, uh, resistance.
Chris
Well, see, that’s the thing though is like, I’ve got a text, textured bed too.
And, you know, it’s just, it’s worth it for me to scrape off and start again because if I try to, at least my printer has this issue where if you try to start again, for some reason my nozzle likes to grab the plastic a lot.
So if I try to, if I try to resume a print.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Um, like I can pause a print and as long as the nozzle hasn’t moved, I can resume the print, no problem.
But if the nozzle moves at all, it won’t.
It’ll, it doesn’t ever seem to want to go back to their exact same position and resume and ends up grabbing the plastic and just all in all, it’s all just been easier just to grab my scraper, scrape off the first layer or two and start over again.
Kevin
Right.
And that’s exactly what I’m talking about here.
Um, and so this is the first time I’ve ever tried anything like this.
And so I thought it would work, but it didn’t.
So I know in the future, not to do the same thing.
Um…
Chris
right.
Kevin
I was just, what I was thinking of though, is that it is really difficult for me to get that first layer off if it doesn’t have anything above it to help me pull it off.
Frank
Because it’s all it’s all scraping at that point.
Kevin
Right.
And sometimes it’s impossible.
Like I’ll have traces, like very thin traces of like the skirt that the only way I can really get them off is to print over them.
And then…
Chris
did you try glass cleaner.
Kevin
Does glass cleaner dissolve plastic?
Chris
No, but it does.
It does help you get, um, it does, does help your scraper pull the plastic up though.
I don’t know.
It’s worked for me.
Kevin
I’ll give it a try.
Um, well, yeah.
But I, with my other the flexible build plate, I did get, I did take the time to wipe that down with some isopropyl alcohol.
I haven’t tried reprinting anything on it yet.
That’s going to be the next step, because I’m going to, I’m going to run off the articulated bat that I talked about way, way, way long ago.
And, and see how that works on it.
And then we’ll go from there.
Frank
Christmas bat.
Kevin
Yeah.
But then the other thing that I’ve done, because I did a lot is that I, I went on Titancraft and made a character from my book.
Um, and I was kind of impressed that I was able to do this because the, the character’s name is Gorin, or no, Rogan, Rogan.
He’s based on a guy named Gorin, but, um, long story there.
But anyway, he, uh, he’s a species, a breed I came up with called a Parisin.
And the, the distinguishing features of these guys are that they’ve got crescent shaped ears and round eyes.
Like, you know, most humans have slightly almond shaped eyes, ovoid kind of things.
But these big round eyes.
So I was able to make on Titan craft the eyes big and round.
And then I was able to mess with the ears enough to make them look pretty well crescent shaped.
So I was pretty excited about that.
And I, I’m printing him.
I made the, uh, I made the model on Titan craft as big as it would let me.
And then, uh, when I put it into the slicer, I saw that it was too big for the build plate.
So I had to scale it, I had to scale it down to like 57.1% or something like that.
Oh geez.
To get it to fit on the build plate.
Frank
That’s a better solution anyway, because your increasing resolution as you shrink it ideally.
Kevin
Yeah.
And so then I started it printing last night just before I went to bed and it has now 8…
Frank
And Kevin froze.
Chris
Kevin, I think we lost him.
And
Eight something.
Eight hours.
Chris
Eight floor.
Frank
Eight hours completed.
Andy
There we go.
Frank
Eight minutes left.
Eight hours left.
Something like that.
Andy
Well, while we wait for, for Kevin, what do you got going on, Chrissy?
Chris
Okay.
So remember how, um, I printed up that nice little thing just on the fly for the wife the other week.
Kevin
My computer just turned off.
Um, as I was saying, this thing has 18 minutes left to print.
Um, and I’m going mobile now.
Chris
Okay.
Kevin
So, uh, that’s really all I’m going to try to solve this problem now.
Chris
I thought, I thought you were going to say that it ate, that it ate dirt.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
Oh, okay.
So, um, anyway, I was talking about how we, uh, how I’d printed up the little measure, uh, sewing tape, sewing measuring tape holder spool.
Right.
Andy
Yeah.
Chris
She actually thought it was so good, um, that I am now printing those up as stocking stuffers for the, all the women that we were putting things in their stocking for.
Frank
Okay.
Chris
But my wife’s going around collecting their measuring tapes to make sure that they’re the, uh, correct width.
Chris
So
Frank
where are they just going to be returned with the thing on them?
Chris
They’re just going to be returned in the stocking with the thing on them.
Andy
Okay.
So it’s neat.
Chris
Yep.
So, uh
Andy
good idea.
Chris
Yeah.
And, um, we also had this great idea.
So, um, you guys know those puzzle tubes.
That, you know, are available.
That’s so you can…
Frank
kind of like a cryptex except for it’s only one thing that you’re moving.
Right.
Chris
So…
Andy
I’ve made one of those before they’re, they’re fun to make.
Chris
Yeah.
Yeah.
The, the tube mazes, they’re pretty cool.
So there’s, uh, there’s a couple of different kinds we found.
Um, you know, a dragon, a Christmas tree and, um, I think it was just a regular one.
Anyway, we’re going to print them up and put money in them for, uh, for three of three of my in-laws and they’re going to get them in their stocking and we’re going to ask them to try to open them up at the, uh, open them up at the same time and see who gets through it first.
Andy
Oh, that’ll be fun.
Kevin
I’m back on the computer, by the way.
Andy
Oh, good deal.
Nice to have you back sir.
Chris
Yeah.
Yeah.
Steam, Steam just said, Hey, Kevin’s back online.
Kevin
Yeah.
So one of the things I was going to do, and this is for the visual listeners, I was going to grab my camera and show you guys how big this, this thing is.
Andy
Oh wow.
Chris
It’s like a moose.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
That’s going to be huge.
I can’t wait to see that one done.
That’ll be fun.
Kevin
Yeah.
Chris
Done, done, done.
Kevin
So it’s, it’s several inches tall.
My plan is I’m going to paint it up and just have it as a desk decoration, either at home or at work.
Chris
A deskoration?
Kevin
Yeah.
Cause it’s, I was so happy that I was able to do this.
Um, I could also share my screen, but
Frank
finding a way to include the STL with your book on Amazon.
Kevin
That would be cool.
Chris
Drill a little hole in the, in the, in the, in the base, fill it with, fill it with sand a little bit, glue it back up and call it a paperweight.
Andy
Yeah.
There you go.
Kevin
Well, the, the base is actually pretty thin.
I think I need to, uh, thicken it up a bit if I were to print it again, especially at this size.
But, uh, yeah, I was just really glad I was able to, to pull that off on Titancraft… um door.
Chris
So anybody for Titan craft, if you’re listening, we, we will sponsor or we would gladly take you as a sponsor.
We’ve already been advertising for you now for a year and a half.
We won’t ask for back dues.
Kevin
We just, uh, I just barely discovered them earlier this year, but, um, I can hang on a second.
Share screen, screen share.
Chris
Why are you screening at me?
Kevin
So this, this is the thing that I designed.
Andy
Oh.
Kevin
You can see the big round eyes.
Andy
Yeah.
Kevin
Check out that ear.
Andy
That’s cool looking.
Chris
Wow.
He’s not lobes.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
That’s neat.
Kevin
Yeah.
So I’m, I’m excited to get this painted up and then I will be putting it on my, um, Facebook author page as an example of what I envision Rogan looking like.
And then you say, Hey, I can, I could probably make several of the characters from my book on this.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Sounds good to me.
Kevin
Yeah.
Andy
It’s neat.
Kevin
Okay.
Now I’m done.
Frank
Okay.
Andy
So what about you, Chrissy?
Chris
Um, yeah.
So there was that.
Um, today after our podcast, I’m going to be sending down the last coat of drywall mudding and, um, uh, cleaning up and, and, uh, getting the primer coat of paint done down today.
So that means tomorrow and or during the week, I will be getting the actual painting done.
And so that means I need to be printing covers.
So.
Andy
Oh yes.
Light switch covers and plug covers.
Chris
Yep.
Andy
Outlet covers.
That’s going to be fun.
Chris
Yep.
And, uh, and now the wife is throwing various wall decorations into the mix.
Andy
Awesome.
Frank
I could be surprised.
I know I say that a lot.
Chris
Yeah.
Yeah.
And well, you know, it’s, uh, there’s only so much, so much time allotted.
And so seeing what is going on for the holiday, um, we may just be putting that off until, you know, early, uh, you know, until through February’s and things.
Andy
Okay.
Chris
For all the extra or any of the decorations and what have you.
Andy
Yeah.
Well, nice.
Chris
Yep.
Um…
Andy
so.
What about you, Frankie?
Have you done anything?
Frank
Uh, the last week I have printed a bunch of jars.
I mentioned, I think I mentioned last week that I purchased some ornaments to go on my beard.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Um, I wasn’t happy with the container they were in.
It was flimsy kind of, it was shipping plastic.
It wasn’t really meant to be the container that they were in.
So I designed, from the ground up, a print… a jar to put them in and ended up printing off three or four until I got the right size.
And then I, I have a collection of adapters for USB.
So it goes USB C to micro, USB C to mini, mini to micro, mini to c, you know, just a bunch of adapters.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And the jar that I had those in was getting packed and I had a few that were not in there.
So I, I designed a smaller jar for those.
And that’s really all I’ve done.
I have been putting in extra hours at work and haven’t really had the bandwidth to print fun stuff for the last little bit.
Andy
Totally understand.
Frank
And actually, technically, I still need to build dust lids, redesign and print dust lids for some of the, uh, the buckets that Candice and I have gotten from movies, you know, the you go to a movie, you get the, the bucket, the popcorn bucket that has the movie theme on it.
I’ve got four of those.
I need to print dust lids for and some, uh, when, when we don’t get the bucket, we get the vinyl cup for the movie.
And so I’ve got a few of those and some other collectible cups that we’ve got.
I’m going to print dust lids for all of them and then they’re going to go up on the shelf.
Andy
So those are kind of a fun thing to collect.
Frank
Yeah.
And, uh, if you remember my blog, we, we built risers on top of our cupboards to store and present all of our collectible buckets and cups.
Andy
So yeah, that’s nice.
Frank
Um, as far as plans, all the talk of white elephant gifts made me think, you know, it would be a Frankie thing to do to, uh, print off some elephants and give them the white elephant gift.
Andy
Yeah.
I can see you do that.
Frank
I’m kind of looking into see what the options are for that.
Andy
Okay.
Frank
And that’s where it is for me right now.
Andy
Not too bad.
Got a lot on the docket.
It is a busy time of year.
Frank
Yeah.
I really don’t expect I’ll be doing a whole lot myself between now and New Year’s.
Um, maybe some gag gifts, but I’m surprisingly un-busy with, uh, 3d printing this year for Christmas.
Andy
Right.
Frank
Maybe not so surprising.
I haven’t been able to buy the, uh, the fun filament for prints.
So because, you know, disposable income, I brought that up a few times.
There’s not a whole lot of it.
So I don’t get to put it into filament that is for play as much.
Andy
Totally.
Totally understand.
Frank
Got to save that money for presents instead.
Andy
Yeah.
Frank
Things that people want.
Andy
Christmas has gotten really expensive this year.
Oh my God.
Frank
It’s always been expensive, I think.
I think it’s always been expensive.
Kevin
Yeah.
Frank
Honestly.
Um, but when it comes to, and, you know, Kevin’s ahead of all of us with, uh, teenage kids and that sort of thing tastes only get more expensive.
Right.
So like Andy with your brood, I can only imagine how expensive Christmas is going to become as they all get older.
Andy
Yeah.
Not looking forward to that.
This year we wound up, because we save all through the year for Christmas and, um, the laptops are getting a little old for the rest of the family.
And so the beginning of this year, we started putting away a little bit extra for Christmas this year.
So we could do something about that, but oh my gosh.
Uh, so we bought two, uh, new machines and we’re going to move, we’re going to move some of the machines that we have around to kind of give everybody an upgrade.
Uh, except for me, of course, cause your dad always gets to set these things out.
And, uh, so it’s expensive.
Uh, even if you’re saving up through the whole year, it’s still, it felt it every single month when you had to make that deposit in the bank.
It’s like, oh, that hurts.
And you know what?
They’re going to open the presents and I guarantee they’re not going to like have that overjoyed excitement any like we did when we were little kids, you know, right?
Frank
I feel like it is expressed differently, maybe not a lack of excitement though.
Andy
I guess I’m saying that because I think they kind of are expecting it.
So that would be the reason.
Frank
So it’s less surprise excitement and more finally I got this excited.
Andy
You nailed it.
You nailed it right there.
It’s like, ah, it’s about time.
So I mean, we went to like Christmas village and sat on Santa’s lap and we wrote, we write letters to Santa Claus every year and both the kids put them, you know, that they wanted a laptop on top of the fun toys that they wanted.
So it’s kind of like, I guess I’m not even going to be the one to give it to them.
It’s going to be Santa Claus this year.
That turd gets to give all the great gifts.
So I guess that’s about about having kids.
Frank
Reminds me.
My parents told us that if we didn’t believe in Santa Claus, we didn’t neet to get gifts from him.
Andy
I told my kids the same damn thing.
Frank
We were teens.
We were teens and our mom and dad would be like, do you believe in Santa Claus?
And we were like, yeah, of course we do.
Andy
I sit there every year preparing the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve night.
And my dad will give his Christmas gifts to us to put under the tree because he joins us for Christmas for the kids because it was always a nice shock value when you’ve got a couple of presents under the tree, but then Christmas comes around and there’s a lot more under the tree.
And as a little kid, I never put together that it seems like even mom and dad’s presents come on Christmas Eve.
The shock value was really awesome.
So we do it with the presents my dad gives the kids too for that shock value.
But yeah, even while I’m in the midst, we’re doing the duties, there is no talk about how Santa’s not real with my dad.
If it ever comes up, the question ever comes up, like, yeah, I don’t know how this works.
Santa works in mysterious ways.
Well, here’s some of these presents here to put under the tree.
Chris
Any of our listeners that are discovering this for the first time, yes.
We’re going to say congratulations.
Frank
No, I don’t think we ruined anything
Kevin
right.
Frank
We never really agreed one way or the other.
We just specified that we stopped believing at some point.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.
Andy
He’s got a lot of helpers.
Somehow happens to the kids every year.
I don’t know how.
I don’t even have a fireplace.
Frank
Well, you’ve seen The Santa Claus, right?
One just appears when it needs to be there.
Andy
Yeah, he is magical.
I suspect the chimney is just easier to come down.
But if not available, there is just a flick of the fingers he could use, I swear.
Frank
Let’s be honest, most chimneys in the last hundred years have not been that big.
A normal child would have trouble getting down it, let alone a big fat guy.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
You know, growing up, I lived in an apartment building my whole life, and I brought that question up.
And my parents showed me the flume for the water heater and said, if we have a chimney, that isn’t as close to a chimney as we got.
Santa probably comes down that.
And so every year past that, we had to leave the water heater closet door open every single year.
And it wouldn’t be locked in the closet when he comes down to the flume.
Chris
Santa’s in the closet.
Kevin
You know, he can squeeze down that flume, but he can’t open the door.
Andy
Well, that’s the thing that the door only had like the one handle on the outside.
It didn’t really do anything.
I would lock David in there all the time.
So my little brother, growing up.
So you could get locked in there.
Frank
Older brothers always terrorize younger brothers, apparently.
Kevin
That’s true.
Andy
Oh, definitely.
I can hear it happening upstairs with the kids, right, as we speak.
Frank
That’s why the younger brothers are always tougher than the older brothers, right?
Andy
Yeah, definitely, definitely.
Kevin
So going back to the beard ornaments, last Saturday, we had our ward Christmas party.
I got some green styling wax.
And I put that in my mustache and in my goatee.
And then I… last year or the year before I had gotten some beard ornaments for free with the purchase of some beard oils that I got from a fabled beard oil company.
And so I put three of those in my beard and everybody loved it.
They thought it was a hoot.
Then when I went to church the next day, they were like, Hey, where are the ornaments?
Where’s the green?
I was like
Frank
It washes out.
Kevin
Right.
Frank
I sit on I sit on the dais.
I didn’t want to distract everybody.
Chris
OK, yeah.
So here we go.
I just shared a picture with everybody.
OK, let’s look at this picture here.
What do we got?
Kevin
Let’s take a look.
See
Andy
Clickety clickety
Oh, that’s a picture of Kevin.
Oh, beautiful green beard.
Chris
With the green beard wax and the jinglies in his…
Kevin
But they’re not jinglies.
They’re just they’re just bobbles.
Andy
Oh, I love it.
I love it.
That’s awesome.
Chris
I thought they were jinglies.
So I got I’m just imagining hearing jingle, jingle, jingle every time you were you were saying something.
Andy
That is awesome.
What did what do you use to dye your beard again?
Kevin
It was green styling wax.
Andy
Green styling wax.
I am going to adapt some of that.
That looks awesome.
I am is maybe half half gray down here.
So stuff like that would probably really take well.
Kevin
Oh, your model is 12 hours and 10 minutes later.
It is complete.
Frank
And another five or six hours.
Removing everything’s break off the sword or no.
Kevin
It’s this is a large enough model that taking off the supports will only take a minute or two.
Andy
Oh, good.
Do they do they mar up the surface very much on those kind of SLA supports?
Kevin
A little bit.
Andy
Do they?
Kevin
Yeah, I don’t know if you can see on the back of this guy.
If I hold it the light correctly, you can see that there is a little bit of texturing.
Andy
You can see a little bit.
Yeah, OK, you can see a little bit.
It’s not bad, though.
Kevin
No, get a file in it, and it sands away just fine.
OK, and then if you’re going to paint it, you cover it up anyway.
So…
Andy
True, true.
Kevin
and I am planning on painting these.
Frank
Good deal.
Andy
And that turned out really well.
Kevin
Yeah, and it’s like four and a half inches tall.
Andy
Yeah, it’s not a big one.
Yeah, that’s cool.
I like the ears on it.
Kevin
Yeah, me too.
And…
Andy
I never.
Kevin
Sorry, I printed it large so that the ears would show up like that.
Andy
That’s good.
Kevin
What are we going to say?
Andy
That’s a neat trade.
I’ve never seen ears like that before, or people really do much different other than like elf like ears, you know.
I mean, even the Vulcans are elf like ears.
So but what you did to them, that’s pretty neat.
Kevin
Well, I I wanted them to be different enough because originally my plan was to have be elves and orcs and humans.
And I thought, no, that’s that’s cliche.
So I’m going to come up with my own people and come give them their own unique traits.
And like, I thought, if I just say, oh, yeah, the the Parisian have pointed ears, then the readers would just be like, OK, so…
Frank
So he’s an elf
Kevin
renamed elves.
Andy
Yeah
Kevin
because part of part of the logic, though, was I was like, I always imagined this guy having a mustache and goatee.
And classically, elves don’t have that.
Andy
OK
Kevin
I mean elves aren’t even capable and not.
Frank
Yeah, not capable of growing facial hair.
So…
Kevin
Right.
And so I was like, well, I need to come up.
I need to make them different so that I can justify this.
But also they have peaceful dealings with the the characters that were going to be orcs.
And I’m like, readers are not going to like that either.
Because it’s not fitting with the stereotypical elves and orcs are always enemies and orcs don’t get along with anybody, except goblins and other orcs and blah, blah, blah.
So I was like, OK, came up with my own backstory for everything.
And renamed characters gave them different traits so that they’re not the same.
I mean, you’d probably be able to tell if I didn’t tell you that they are based on these other races, but they are not the actual races.
And in fact, later later on in the book, I do mention that elves do exist, but that people don’t really like them very much because they think they’re all arrogant.
Chris
They’re pretentious jerks.
Frank
Yeah, they’re reclusive, but it’s not because they prefer to be in the forest.
It’s because nobody will let them into their cities.
Chris
No elves allowed.
Kevin
Actually, yeah.
And this conversation, I think it happens when when the characters are going to visit the druids in their home area and it’s like this this whole magical grove and there are pixies and other fey creatures all about.
And then somebody asks about elves and it’s the the druids there.
They’re like, oh, yeah, we don’t like those guys.
So we we’ve invited them to not be part of our community.
Andy
OK
Chris
by force.
Kevin
Yeah
Chris
I just thought how fun it would be to have a race of creatures that look like hairless cats, except that the only hair they can grow is in their ears and nose.
Andy
I like that.
Chris
So they they have these big, proud nose hair.
Frank
Like hobbits with their feet, except not so.
Kevin
Right.
Andy
Yeah.
If they actually like embraced it, it wasn’t just this hairy part of the animal or whatever.
No, they actually like styled it and stuff like that.
Chris
Yeah, straight out of a nose and spiky ears, spiky ears.
Frank
Pleated noe hair.
Well, what do you guys say we call it?
Kevin
I say that’s a fantastic idea.
Andy
I have to agree.
Frank
We’re we’re leveling out on the other side of the hill there.
Kevin
Yup.
Andy
I agree.
Chris
We’re going down the roller coaster.
Frank
We’d like to thank everyone for listening to the very end.
Chris
The very, very drolling end.
Frank
If you like what you hear, please give us all the stars and subscribe.
We are available through a wide variety of podcast vendors.
And so we’re easy to share.
And if you’re one of our thirty seven listeners, we don’t mind growing above 40.
Hint hint, nudge nudge.
If you have any feedback, you can find us in our Facebook group, Amateur 3D Pod.
Or you can email us at Franklin, Kevin, Andy or Chris @amateur3dpod.com.
Or you can get us all together at panelists at amateur3dpod.com.
Kevin Buckner wrote the music for this episode.
Open AI’s whisper completed the heavy lifting for the transcripts, which you can find linked in the description as soon as I get the website figured out.
Our panelists are me, Franklin Christensen and my friends, Kevin Buckner, Chris Weber and Andy Cottam.
Until next time, we’re going offline.
Kevin
Keep your FEP tight.
Andy
Always use hairspray.
Chris
I got narcissistic and printed a bust of myself.
New Year, new me.
Andy
I’ve got a scanner.
I should make a bust of myself.
Chris
Hey, there you go.
Frank
You keep coming up with ways to send Chris an image of yourself.
Andy
Oh, guys, I forgot something.
I tried the Jesus toast.
It was terrible.
If any of you guys, if any of you guys…
Frank
It tasted terrible or it didn’t print very well.
Andy
I didn’t even try.
Have you ever tried like when you were a little kid, did you ever use a magnifying glass on ants and be that kind of jerk?
You know that smell?
Yeah, that’s what it smells like when you laser bread.
It was awful.
It started to stink up the house and I was just tuning it in.
And so I decided no, we’re not doing Jesus toast, just getting like figuring out how much to run the laser to get a certain level of brown or whatever, you know, wasn’t worth it.
It was so terribly stinky.
Frank
Maybe try pita bread next.
Andy
Yeah, maybe.
I don’t know.
I did out of playing around.
I did joke around and burn some shapes into some airheads, just taffy, and that was fine to eat.
It didn’t smell funny or anything like that.
It was just crystallized with carbon.
It just takes the burnt.
But the bread, oh, the bread did something terrible.
Chris
I guess.
Frank
Note to self don’t don’t print or don’t laser bread.
Yeah, it’s not worth it.
Chris
It’s stick to the filaments you’re used to.
Frank
So wait a minute.
In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the the more recent movie, they have a laser bread cutter that toasts as you cut.
Chris
Yeah, I don’t think that would work.
Well, of course, there’s a lightsaber bread cutter, too, that I’ve seen that I don’t know if I would trust is a light saber.
Kevin
That’s essentially what is in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Frank
They were making fun of the lightsaber by doing that.
Yeah.
Andy
Yeah.
Except if the lightsaber is plasma based, that might be a little bit different.
Something about doing it with light, it smelled like burnt insects.
And my bread wasn’t full of insects, I don’t think.