Borromean Ring table and pot stand.

 

Hi, 

Back in a design post here,  I mentioned making Borromean rings from bike rims, and in this post (ta da) here they are, not only made but also put into applications, a table and a pot stand. 

The rings are a set of 3 linked steel 27" bicycle rims, and one of them needs to be split apart, then rejoined to make the construction - I will do a making-of post later as I don't seem to have photos. The first app was as a garden ornament over a pot plant, and later I made a table.

Then I used the rings as a pot hanger, and I had the idea of using the construction in a floral display competition at the Ivanhoe garden club September meeting. Trouble was I know almost nothing about plants and called for assistance from friends with the plant to display. M was able to help by providing a pink Primula.

I elevated my standard (ok its rusty, take it or leave it) presentation of the rings for the garden show by scrubbing, then priming and painting the rings. They came out well and (woohoo) I won equal 2nd prize in the open section. A truly spectacular display won my section.

This was quite a good experience, I wouldn't have presented this work here, or properly at  all if hadn't been for the garden club competition.

Refined tangle

 

New set of tangles on 3 part cross shaped jig. The red rectangles were strapped to the jig, then the blak and orange squares added.

New tangle parts, The previous version used 10cc of material, and this new version is down to 7.3cc.

Tangle with some extra bits added

The whole thing from the side.

M6 bolt threaded into hole

Mod to hole positions was .....

The last thing done and it enabled this construction.

Over the last few weeks I have been refining my orderly tangles design, and started making good progress on a revision in the last few days. Initially I was helped by my young grandson, he busted some of the original parts, which prompted me to change some things. 

I've hollowed out the straight sections of the main part in a way that does not require support material when 3D printing. This opens up new holes in the design making some free form structures possible as a secondary use of the parts. This is a lot simpler than making the orderly tangle!

When fiddling with the designs I realized the assembly jig could be changed to make more structures possible: the outer holes of the assembled jig could line up with the holes in the square halves. That change has been done now and the new designs are up on thingiverse. Another nice coincidence is that the holes in the jig and the main part will accommodate an M6 thread this means that a hole can be converted to a stud in the playful assemblies. Download the files here, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7366096 

 

  Regards Steve Nurse