MakerBot Industries

Horseshoes. Urban Style.

With Labor Day just about 60 hours away, it’s a great time to start practicing your long-toss in preparation of perhaps your last BBQ of the summer (and for some of you, the last time to wear white for quite some time). Thanks to PolygonPusher‘s printable horseshoe, we can play the ancient (over 2,000 years old!) game with modern technology! I do not recommend using the shoe for your beloved pony.

So get outside and enjoy the long weekend!

To avoid backyard arguments, please be sure to consult with The National Horseshoe Pitchers Association (NHPA) for proper game rules.

Horseshoe by PolygonPusher

Simple 3D-printable horseshoe. - 90x90x7 mm

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Pencil Case for Exactly 10 Pencil

After my daughter and I were drawing the other day I commented to my wife how cool it would be to carry around a few colored pencils of my own for when I feel like doodling or sketching. ^1 2  A few days later she presented me with an excellent selection of 10 short colored pencils that were duplicates from my daughter’s collection. ³⁴⁵⁶⁷

However, now that I had these ten little pencils, I was faced with the challenge of how to carry them around.  After measuring them with my trusty calipers, I found they were 7mm from flat side to flat side on a cross-section.  The above design uses a “width” of 7.2mm, which has resulted in an excellent fit.  Each of the pencils falls/slides easily into a vacant hexagonal slot.  The printed cap could be printed by increasing the “width” of the pencils.  ⁸  I’ve included the OpenSCAD file for anyone to peruse.  Before you try to render it, please note it uses the MCAD library of shapes for OpenSCAD to create the hexagons. ⁹

Without my trust Thing-O-Matic at the ready, I would never be able to find the perfect little pencil case for these pencils.  And, not taken a very large sample reading of other pencils¹⁰ I wouldn’t even know if a case for other pencils would fit these little ones.  Perhaps my favorite part about this design is that when you slide these little pencils into the case, you just know this case was custom made for these ten pencils.¹¹

Pencil Case for 10 Pencils by MakerBlock

A simple pencil case for exactly 10-pencils. *** Here's my set up: * Thing-O-Matic ( store.makerbot.com/makerbot-thing-o-matic.html ) * Stock Teflon coated 0.5mm nozzle ( store.makerbot.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=nozzle+teflon ) * MakerBot PLA, 3mm ( store.makerbot.com/pla-4043d-1kg-spool-3mm.html ) * Automated Build Platform ( store.makerbot.com/automated-build-platform.html ) * Settings from my ProfileMaker ( makerblock.com/profilemaker/ ) Extruder at 188C, ABP heated to 80C, a 40mm ducted extruder fan ( thingiverse.com/thing:8955 ), 0.36mm layer height, and the sides of my 'bot enclosed with white paper to reduce drafts

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1. As opposed to working. [↩]
2. Which is pretty much always. [↩]
3. She’ll never miss them. [↩]
4. In part because she has so many.  In part because it will still be a year before she can read and a few more years until she could find this blog post. [↩]
5. “Those pencils, honey?  Oh, those are daddy’s pencils.” [↩]
6. Actually, I already know what the true price of these pencils will be.  My daughter will request her own little pencil case – which I will be only too happy to print for her. [↩]
7. “What color, honey?”  “Pink!  PINK!“ [↩]
8. The cap pictured is from the prior draft print. [↩]
9. If only someone would get off their bum and write a tutorial about OpenSCAD libraries! [↩]
10. That is to say I didn’t measure any others… [↩]
11. You probably know, but in case you don’t: – bespoke. [↩]

Cylinders stretching as far as the eye can see.

After my earlier posts, I would be seriously remiss if I didn’t mention sirmakesalot‘s latest conquest: the V-12.

Having a car with 12-cylinder engine is well beyond the means of most of us; it’s the type of engine that powers bespoke Ferraris and 1970s Jaguars.  It’s basically what you get when you add your Toyota’s four-cylinder to your Cadillac’s eight — and it has as much power as both of them together.

It also uses as much gasoline as running them both at the same time, so there’s another reason most of us will never have one.  But now, we can print this one out and just admire it…thanks again, sirmakesalot!

V-12 motor by sirmakesalot

Someone said V-12 and I heard you! This one is very simmilar to my V-8 but with the addition of a modular section that allows you to make any size; want a V-24? no problem, want a V-6 ? You got it! Perhaps something strange like an in line-8 or 6...weird! Motor on demand! There is a complete single tray file for those who have the printer footprint for it other wise single part types per tray for colour printing and I have added the source file so you can play, enjoy! I am printing one today (started 11:30 am Sunday) I will have pictures tonight! All done! 7.5-8 hours of printing time and 15-20 minutes to assemble. UPDATE I have added a larger piston. It should fit a bit tighter but requires good settings.

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Castle Block Playset by tc_fea

I love all of the modular playsets on Thingiverse.  Right now you have your choice of dungeons, cathedrals, cubical farms, and stone houses from an imaginary land.   Well, now you have even more options – Thingiverse citizen tc_fea has done it again with this very cool modular castle play set.  I am pretty sure I could lose an entire day to printing and playing with such a set.  How cool would it be to have a sack full of these pieces to build a giant sprawling castle?

And, once built, you are basically obligated to print a few siege weapons…¹ … or maybe a few dragons?

Castle Block Playset - UPDATED 9.5.2011 by tc_fea

This is a castle block set. There are now 11 different pieces: wall, corner turret, open gate, closed gate, castle end, castle door, roof end and roof center, added 135 degree corner, short wall and pointed round roof. A standard parts list is provided as file: castle_playset_standard_pieces.pdf all the .stl files are zipped into two files: (1) castle_playset_stl_110830.zip (2) castle_play_set_more_stuff.zip File: assembly_2_110905g_labeled.skp contains all pieces. However, some of the other .skp files may be more convenient. This set can make a 3X larger version of "miniature castle" thing:7013 The little alien is Zomboe's thing 1: thing:2958

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1. Though, seriously, where the heck are all the trebuchets?! [↩]