News and Events

Keep up to date with Steve Nurse's designs and 3d printing.

Sunday 28 October 2018

M-Pavillion Session



My trike at Mpavillion









Hi, yesterday was Sunday, and I had been invited to this event wrapping up the Fringe Furniture Exhibit at the nearby Mpavillion, so I rode down there to have a look.  The building is very stunning, seeming (almost) to grow out of the landscape rather than being put upon it. There was a huge, peaceful but noisy religious gathering going on at the start, and the organizers of the Mpavillion event had to start a bit late because of that.

Anyway, quite a bit of chat about design in Public and Private art galleries and displaying things on the web which was interesting.  I left before the end, I have a real job starting next week and bought some workboots for that on the way home.

A few days ago, I added more 3d printed orange bling to my bike, there is only the handlebar ends to go and then I think the whole thing is blinged.

Regards

Steve Nurse

Thursday 11 October 2018

Asymmetric Surfboard Part 2

Draw in asymmetric Planshape, 2600 x 528 x 100 deep, about 8'6" x 20.8"

Cut in side view so its 50mm thick at the ends.

Cut in end view so its 50mm thick at the sides.

3d print at 1:20 scale, including scale fins.

2 of the resulting model surfboards, seen with the fin at this end.

Top view, shown with fins at the bottom.  It is the same surfboard just rotated 180 degrees and with the fin in the other end.

View from below.

Side views

This gives an indication of scale, the models are about 1:20 full scale or 130mm long.
Hi, I posted about my assymmetric surfboard a few months ago, and since then have done some work on the proposal of "taking the idea further, making a double ended Asym with one end that suits a goofy and the other end that suits a natural footer". 

So the idea is shown above in model form.  From the trace I had made of my modded Trigger Brothers board, I cadded it up and then printed a 1:20 scale model.

As discussed here in Swellnet, the theory of the Asyms is that surfers can turn the side of the board their toes are on sharper and more quickly than the side of the board their heels are on.  And that side varies, depending if you surf right foot forward (goofy) or left foot forward (natural).  So making the toe side of the board longer at the back than the heal side is fine, and can work to make boards more manoeverable, but a board made like this that suits a goofy won't suit a natural / regular footer and vice versa.

So here is my crack at a solution, an Asym double ender. The front of the board is compromised, it wouldn't have the same lift or rocker as a standard board, but I think ok surfers would be able to cope. If I want to go further and actually make the thing as a surfboard, there are a few steps I could take.

* Bring my board and the models to a surfboardmaker and  get them to make one. This wouldn't teach me much!
* Download Akushaper and put in the design, something like I already have done, then go to someone who knows what they're doing to tweak it.

Till next time!

Steve Nurse

 

Wednesday 3 October 2018

Flowers Construction Kit


Welcome!


My interlocking 3d printed pieces are based on.....
the work of Rinus Roelofs and some other models I have made, and they use......



3d printer filament like this as an interlocking edge.


Hi

Earlier this year, I came across the work of Rinus Roelofs, a Dutch sculptor, artist and presenter who dabbles in creating unusual polyhedra.  Some of his work interested me a lot, so I decided to make some connectable "L" shapes on my 3d printer, capable of forming Rinus' Flat L-tiles, Non-Flat L-tiles, and Cylindrical L-tiles.   The L's I made use some techniques I've developed for making other parts, so weren't that hard to do. When I had made a few things, I wondered what were they for, and decided that maybe they could be a flower vase.  So I made a complimentary piece to go with the "L", shown orange in the pics below.  While this new Vase piece looked quite good, it didn't hold water as vases should, so I have lined the pieces with aluminium foil when they are holding water and flowers as per the pictures below.


Vase #1
Vase#2

Making liners for vase from used aluminium foil fish and chip wrapper.
This kitchen table sculpture.....

fell over, so I was compelled to make.....
this one using allthread rod which is much more secure.
2 storey vase tower secured by 3mm rods.

Rubber band and rod construction method.

Given that the vase part didn't hold water, I decided to put some holes in it to make connections to other parts.  This can be done with 3mm dowel, rubber bands, straws and allthread rod as shown above.

L's with rubber bands and rods.
Similarly, the "L" shaped pieces could make different connections, and I put in an extra slot to hold skewers, rods and straws using rubber bands.

On this piece, the orange parts are held in place by protuding 3d printer filaments in the assembly of 3 red parts

Some more mini sculptures

A very small design modifitation to the red parts allows this sort of balancing. The orange parts have flats on the edges.


Above are some photos showing extra possibilities for balancing. The apex of the 3 joined L's has enough room and the right shape to balance a Vase, the Vases have flats on the edges for stacking parts on top, and the 3d printer filament can be positioned on the L's to make miniature hooks to hold Vases in place.

This shows 9 red parts and 4 orange parts all fitted together neatly so they can be transported & kept tidy. This should be enough for a group of 4 to take on a construction or art challenge.
Basic materials to make the forms shown in the 6 photos above this one.


The extra parts needed to make the things are relatively simple as shown above. In terms of part numbers, 9 of the red L and 4 of the orange vase seems to be enough to make some interesting shapes and this set also packs up nice and neatly into a cube, see photo above.


Click on the slide to show the construction challenge in detail. Printing filament and a set number of bolts, straws, strings, rubber bands and 9 red L's and 4 orange Vases were provided to the groups of 4 or 5 students.

Art challenge was inspired by images of the Vault  / Yellow Peril sculpture by Ron Robertson Swann.





Construction challenge in progress.

The construction challenge washup was a table showing the heights of structures, weight of screws and these 2 multiplied together.


So after I had made the parts, and had put them together in many ways I wanted to share them, so ran some 3d printing / construction challenge / art challenge classes over 2 sessions of 90 minutes each.  "Art"  was inspired by a local Melbourne sculpture, Vault, and I made up the construction challenge as shown in the slides above. Students were in groups of 4 or 5.

So what if you want the parts?  They are available for free download Thingiverse pages, here is the link. Within a few months I plan to put models for purchase up on cg trader, these free models are to whet your appetite.

Regards

Steve Nurse



Update Nov 6, 2018: Link to Thingiverse.

Monday 1 October 2018

Artist Talks at Fringe Furniture 32

Margot, Gayle and William from Wecycle at Fringe Furniture.  This was after a Saturday volunteer session fixing bikes for charity.

Heather Horrocks had made balls and baskets from crochered videotape, there is a sample in the foreground.

Thomas Bryce and his midnight sideboard....

As introduced by Kristina

Amelia Warhurst made a pleated table by bending then dying perspex.

Dani Storm shows off her Aurora tables....

and plywood and resin cube, "Impossible"

My talk



And the after-party, Graham Signorini with my wife Christine.

Kristen Wang's coffee stool won an award, its made from coffee grounds and animal waste held together by a hessian coffee bag mesh.

Jack Simm and his organically smooth table.

Luke Neil made a light fitting seen here, and an elaborate sideboard "Scorpion Table"

Grace Eun Hai Kim and her Lumeneer lightshade


Hi, last night was bump-out night for Fringe Furniture.  I went to every one of the 3 Artist-Led tours, and gave a talk as an artist myself, and it is an easy-peasy 5 minute riverside bike ride to get there.  So I took some photos of the artists and never really intended to blog about it, but except for our host Kristina, nobody else was there for all 3 shows, so here you have it.  Thanks to the Melbourne Fringe for supporting Fringe Furniture.

Regards

Steve nurse