Rings and Things

By the mighty magic of modern technology, we are now able to turn digital files into objects made of, well, real materials of value.

First of all, Rhino is a pretty handy too to use to sketch out ideas...
Second, 3D printers seem like magical contraptions...
Third, rings are always.... fun...

I've always been fairly interested in owning a personalized signet ring, so that is what I think I'll be attempting to make in this next project.


(First ring concept: half the band)

For the first ring concept, fairly simple, its a tapered band with an oval-shaped seal bezel (actual emblem design to come; random designs are, so far, just placeholders)

 

(After taking these screenshots and uploading them here, an idea came to mind to add more of a fancy flourish to the shoulders of the above ring)

Second concept, more of the same, simpler band, more complex seal bezel



(As above, actual emblem design to come, fancy cut-out spheres will have to do for now)

The process was fairly simple and relatively the same for the first and second ring concepts: draw a circle roughly matching the circumference of a finger, sweep a shape around that curve, then boolean union on a lofted/extruded shape. Boolean difference a shape from the flat surface, and tah-dah, a theoretical negative space to press into hot wax.



(Better renders to come, currently, the laptop that I use for doing this is slowly dying and unable to create HD renders without threatening to crash...)

The third concept is not so much of a completed ring, but more of a complex seal bezel design I had been playing around with earlier in the semester.



Because I had been playing around with this before I had learned much more than Rhino's basic commands and functions, the 3D version of this design has some serious issues, which I am still currently trying to resolve (which will probably end in a total recreation of the design).

 

("It's just like making a plaster mold!"... kind of...)

I had been playing around with the idea of creating a more 3D shape than just boolean differencing a single layer of a pattern from a flat surface, so a positive of the final design (ie. the shape of the wax after the ring has been pressed into its surface) was created, flipped, and "pressed" into a similar base shape to create the negative form using the boolean difference command.

 

There were some serious issues with the geometry that left holes in the object after the individual pieces of the 3D design were boolean unioned, and those still have to be resolved and filled.

...And Continues...

In continuation, once again, here is another post about modelling the retractable pen.

I must admit, nothing much seems to have changed.
Last week I made the stupid mistake of modelling many of the pieces using the measure of the diameter instead of the radius, and this week I merely corrected that. (Many of the pieces look the same, just... smaller.) Not much else of the new side of things has yet been modeled.

Though, though, I did manage to get one more part of the pen modeled:

If one thing has to be said about this, it is that there are way too many internal details in a part with such a simple function.

(The Tip Cap: little plastic piece that essentially holds the pen together)

The basic internal and external shape are formed by creating one form, splitting it to shell the bottom and top portions to different wall thicknesses.

 

The internal thread is created by using the Helix command to create the base curve, then sweeping a circle along that to form a solid spiral. Thirds are created by boolean differencing rectangles, then all ends are capped.

This thread 'cutting' device is then positioned within the pen tip form, then boolean differencing it from the internal surface.

The internal ridges in the upper portion of the tip are then created by creating angled rectangles, rounding out an outer concave space with a negative cut from the inside of the upper pen tip, then the whole piece is boolean unioned; top, bottom, and insides.

 

Tah-dah, fancy pen tip... now on to the rest of this pen...

(Oh, on another note.... I found that spring I lost around the time of my last post... it was under the cat...)

...So...It Begins...

In continuation from my last blog post, the measuring and modelling of the retractable pen has begun, and it seems to be going pretty well so far.














(The pen, dismembered on the chopping block... and just imagine that there is a small metal spring lying alongside its kin; it seems to have momentarily disappeared into the void...)




Instead of taking the measurements of the individual parts and immediately digitally modelling the corresponding piece, I opted instead to take the measurements and record them on a word document (a process that has both its benefits, such as having a handy list to refer to, instead of remeasuring a part, and its downfalls, like mixing up the measurements by constantly looking at the wrong numbers for a part then modelling much too large...)

Not every part has been modeled as of yet, but all the measurements have been taken and recorded.

 

(The Ink Tube: a simple tube... filled with ink...)

The metal... nib? part of the pen was modeled by taking measurements of the diameter of the tube shape at both extremities of the tapered tube, then using the Loft function to join them into a solid shape. The Shell command was then used to hollow out the tube, then a sphere was inserted into the tip to create the appearance of a working ball pen.
(Initially, this had been one of the parts made by looking at the incorrect measurements on my measurement sheet, but the use of the Scale command quickly fixed that problem.)

(The Rubber Grip: describes itself, does it not?)

Simple tube with with the raised 'grippy' texture created by using the Sweep1 command to create rings that are then arrayed along the length of the tube and boolean unioned to create a single piece.

The 'clicky'? piece was the hardest so far:

   

(The 'Clicky' Piece: the small piece of plastic that fits over the ink tube and interacts with another piece to create the clicking sound of the pen and to retract the nib)

The varying lengths and widths of the internal and external shape were laid out, then their outlines finalized. These were then revolved to form the 3D shapes. The internal cutting tool is put in place and the command BooleanDifference is used to create a hollow space.

  

(Please ignore the blue circle that somehow avoided deletion)

A similar process is then used to cut the notches and other details.

 

(Tah-dah!)

I think there might be a few discrepancies with a few of the measurements that must be remeasured, and my model of the spring has to be reworked, but so far, so good (I think...)

The Mighty, Magnificent... Pen?!

They say the pen is mightier than the sword, but in the physical sense, can this tiny plastic contraption really best a giant, razor-sharp knife near the length of a man?

I certainly wouldn't bet on it...

On another note, will the pen best my Rhino modelling capabilities?

(To be frank.... I would't bet on that either...)

Simply put, out next JWLM 216 project is to create a Rhino model of an existing item (Enter Retractable Pen) that is true to scale.

(Another shot of the pen... amazing.. right?)

I've always found retractable pens fascinating in a strange way, mostly because they are fun to fiddle with when you have nothing to do (or... even when you do have something to do), and have taken them apart and reassembled them on multiple occasions (or... on quite a frequent basis out of sheer boredom).

The retractable pen seems simple enough as a mechanical device, made up of the ink tube, spring, casing, and.... clicky things.... but we shall soon see how hard it will be to model using a program such as Rhino.

Stay tuned for the final results (and to see if the pen be mightier than me)!