Monday, June 26, 2017

Doodled Dudes

One thing that I haven't seen dug up from the 1980s, slathered in modern attention-deficit-mediocrity and re-sold to us is those little finger puppet monsters.  They contained no sound chips, activated no unlockable video game content, and were cheap enough to come in happy meals.  Probably.  Who knows if I can remember the 80s correctly.

Alternate opening paragraph:

Nowadays everybody's 3D-printing fidget spinners.  Perfectly fitting for today - can't sit still, noisy, no personality.  Me, I've got a not-completely-atrophied imagination and my little 3D pen came with some flexible rubbery plastic stock.  So now if my fingers need to do some fidgeting, here's what I've got:


Precision, detailed figures they are not.  But, they're cute enough not to have been banished from my desk yet.

Friday, June 23, 2017

Cobbled Counterfiet Cat Carrier Clip

A lifetime ago, we had a sweet kitty who, when boarded at the vet's while we were away, managed to knock over a room full of pet carriers.  Everything survived, more or less, but ever since then our carrier has been suspiciously missing one of the clips that holds it together.

With Murphy, that wasn't a problem since she basically weighed nothing.  Our current kitty, though, has a bit more junk in the trunk, and is going to need proper support when we move, and take her to her overdue vet visit, etc.

3D printers are all the rage, able to turn files from CAD or animation software into physical, strong plastic parts.  I'd like to have one of those some day but for now the closest I've got is a more arts-and-crafts version - a 3D pen that draws in plastic by hand.  It really is to a 3D printer what an ink pen is to an inkjet printer.  With a steady hand and some thinking ahead, it's possible to make useful stuff.


My hand isn't super steady and I don't plan things all that well, but still the replacement carrier clip turned out pretty nicely.  :^)


The inside of a pen with a couple layers of masking tape was just the right size to scribble the part's "hooks" onto.  The flat bits are just a matter of filling in a shape on paper (or on masking tape, since the melted plastic doesn't stick to that quite as stubbornly).


It snapped right into place, just like the "real" one.  If I cared about it being pretty, I could sand it down a bit, but since its lot in life is to clamp together a cat carrier, I called it good as-is.

If it's not a bit dinged up and cobbled-together, it's probably not mine.  (My wife wishes I wouldn't say that, but she's the exception that proves the dinged-up, cobbled-together rule.  :^)