MakerBot Industries

Aircraft Carrier by Tasslehoff_Burrfoot

My first thought when seeing the above picture of Tasslehoff_Burrfoot‘s Aircraft Carrier¹ was, “What amazing Z axis resolution!”  After reading the description of this thing it became clear he had printed the two halves vertically to minimize warping as the ABS cooled.  I’ve finished lots of printed parts with an exacto knife, putty knife, pliers, and sandpaper – but I had never thought to use sandpaper as Tasslehoff suggests:

Sand down the two conjoining pieces to get a better fit, best way to get perfectly flat is to place a piece of sandpaper on a table and put a piece of 2×4 down perpendicular to the table. Then place the flight deck against the wood and sand down. Same thing with the flight deck. This is if you do not have a heated build platform.

Sanding the printed object on a flat piece of wood results in a flat piece of sandpaper.  Unfortunately, I’ve created unintentionally uneven edges on prints by just using sandpaper without any supportive material underneath.

Thanks for the pro-tip Tasslehoff!

1. Would two be Burrfeet? [↩]

Royal Mail Postage size guide by Solexious

Answer: A standardized uniform design!

In a world where even atomic weights are not necessarily constant, the uniform standardization from the postal service is somewhat comforting.¹²  Thingiverse citizen Solexious has uploaded a copy of the size template found in UK post offices.

What I like about this Thing is that rather than providing us with a mercurial changeable thing³ , Solexious has provided us with the Platonic ideal – a perfect digital rendering of a physical metric for comparing other physical things.⁴⁵ As long as you have access to a standard “Thing” you could always compare your own objects against the standard.  Now you can know before you leave your house what postage you need to affix. ⁶

If you could have a standardized object in your home or office, what would it be?  How would it help you?

1. Thanks slashdot! [↩]
2. I try to be educational and entertaining! [↩]
3. Something that would have made Hericlitus proud. [↩]
4. Mom!  Dad!  I finally used my philosophy degree!!! [↩]
5. “Yes, son, that makes us very proud.  Now, why can’t you be a nice doctor like your brother?” [↩]
6. You could probably also print this out on paper for extra portability and use a laser printer instead of a laser cutter. [↩]