3D Printering: Making A Thing With Blender, Part II
So you have a 3D printer and need to print something of your own design. That’s a problem if you don’t know how to create and edit 3D objects. In this post, we’re continuing our previous misadventures with Blender by making a ‘thing’ torn from a very old book on drafting.
Previously, we’ve made the same part in other 3D design packages. Here’s some links to those other ‘Making a Thing’ posts:
We’ve already done half the work to make a ‘thing’ in Blender, so now it’s time to finish the job. Check out the rest of the tutorial below.
Our Thing
To the right is the ‘thing’ we’re making for all these 3D Printering tutorials. It’s taken out of the 4th edition of Engineering Drawing (French, 1929, p. 105). Yep, it’s an 85-year-old drawing with fractional inches. It serves our purpose, though: a template with which to make something with a 3D CAD package.
By the way, if anyone out there has a 1st edition of Engineering Drawing, I’d love to see if this object actually goes all the way back to the 1911 volume.
The Curse of Blender & What We’ve Done So Far
In the first part of this tutorial, I said using Blender to create a simple mechanical object like our ‘thing’ is akin to using a bulldozer to build a sandcastle. I’m still standing by that assessment. If you want to make precise mechanical parts, don’t use Blender. Blender is a tool for organic and sculptural forms. Want to print out a plastic tree? Blender is a great tool. Want to model some Greek and Roman statuaries? Blender is a great tool. Need a part for a mechanical device? Don’t use Blender. It’s not the right tool for the job.
In the first part of this tutorial, we took a look at the idea behind Blender – mesh editing – and how to interact with vertices, edges, and faces to make a thing. With all the introductory stuff out of the way, it’s time to finish the job.
More Building Of A Thing
To the right is where we left off with the last part of this tutorial. It’s basically just a washer, but the dimensions are correct for the thing we’re making. There are a few things we need to do before this ‘thing’ is done though:
- Add the 3/8″ slot on this washer
- Add the 2 3/4″ wide flange thingy
- Add the 1 1/2″ wide flange
- Build the mounting bracket with the countersunk hole
Not too bad, and we can do these piecemeal.
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