Shop tour

A little tour of my nearly finished shop.

First view when entering from the street

Northeast

Northwest 

A shelf for woodsheet and wood strips is planned in the corner where the ladder can be seen

Southeast, seen from top of the stairs.

And southwest, again from top of the stairs.

Then the backroom. I haven't done much there yet.
 looking north.

Looking east.

South

West. Place for a small fridge and the indispensable coffemachine.

And at last the small room to be alone in.

Small and big boxes is becinning to arrive.

 

Grand opening of the shop will be on 30.august 2013 at noon.
You are very welcome to join.

Have fun

Niels

A little technique and a shop sign

I decided to make my shop sign from painted plywood. The sign has to be finished as one of the first things to do in the shop because the danish equivalet to "Tour de France" called "Post Danmark Rundt" passes on the way to the finish line so a lot of people will come and see the bikes (and hopefully my shop :-)

First photoshop layout

On the sidepanels I will place two large QR-codes one pointing to my website and another pointing to facebook.

I don't have a cnc that big so handcutting with a scrollsaw is the way to go. For transferring the letters to the plywood I learned this technique from one of the scrollsawers-blogs. First I draw outline of the letter with my cad-program and then print the drawing on a laserprinter. The drawing is then placed with the printed side facing the plywood. Then the paper is soaked with zylene and rubbed with a soft cloth. A photocopied drawing can be used too.

The drawing can be seen through the paper.

 And pattern ready for scrool-sawing. The zylene evaporate without any signs on the wood.

I have also used this technique for miniatures for both sawing and carving. Much easier than using transferpaper.

After a few hours scroll-sawing here is the result. Ignore the letters isn't on a straight line :-)

The dots after N and J should be a little larger. Next is a paint job.

And a first floor view of our garden. In the background is another real size project I have promised to finish this week-end. Removing old paint from a door and then repaint and giving some oil to the garden chairs

Have a nice week-end
Niels

New journey!

I have started a new journey

In the end of august I will open a brick&mortar shop: N.J.Model&Hobby.

The photo has undergone a little photoshopping. Today the shop sells knitting yarn and  fabric.

I'll try to sell nearly everything for making doll's houses. Woods, tools, tapestry, furniture, glue, paint, etc....

Progress of the shop will be published on Facebook. I'm told that is the way to spread the words :-)
Here is the link to N.J.Model&Hobby on facebook. Postings on facebook will be in danish only but google translate may be a little helper.

If you wan't to see the surroundings here is a link to google streetview.

Have fun
Niels

Spring is coming, time to change horses...

Well, long time since last time I wrote something here...

As headline says spring is coming after a long and cold winter.

I look forward every spring to see those flowers in our garden. They are Anemone nemorosa normally found in the woods but a few has decided to grow in our garden.  Yesterday I saw the first bumblebees and a butterfly

The 3D-printing story has ended. The technology is not mature enough yet, maybe in 3 to 5 years.
I know you can buy some small pieces of 3D-printed furniture but the quality is far behind the standards I'm looking for. So all my 3D stuff is dismantled and boxed away. It has been fun and I have learned a lot.

What to look forward to? Well here is a little preview of my current just for fun project.

The steel-balls is 2mm in diameter and the display case is h=32mm, w=39mm and d=32mm. If we translate from 1/12scale to real size that gives hwd=38cm,47cm,38cm.

More to come later.

Have fun
Niels

Merry Christmas

3D-printing is fun and takes a lot of time:-)

Here is my latest print plus a little painting afterwards

Same on table for a better view.
The three kings are bringing gifts to new born child. Of course they also have their Camel with them.
And of course the Christmas Crib with the new born child and his parents.

And a Google Sketchup screendump

Have fun
Niels

PS: I am not the designer of the set. I found it on http://www.thingiverse.com a site with lots of ideas of what can be made with a 3D.printer.

The new black

Ever since I heard about 3D-printing many years ago it has been in my mind that someday I would join the wave.

Now it is time for exploring the posibillities of 3D-printing.

I have spent a few hours on the net studying several designs but most of them fails because they are build using 3d-printed components. Chicken and egg problem.

Yes I could go to Ebay and buy a kit but ...

Then I found this Mendel90 design that uses mdf for the basic structure plus (again) lots of 3D-printed plastic parts.By studying the design I soon found out that all the parts can easily be replaced by either wood- or metal-parts.

Basically a 3D-printer is a glue-gun that can be moved in three dimensions so the first challenge is to build a structure for that. The same challenges as for my CNC-machines stable structures with precise movements of a tool..

Here is the very first mockup for my first 3D-printer. A simple T-shabe from two sheets of plywood.

In front of the vertical sheet is some of the parts I will use for the vertical movement of the glue-gun, extruder in 3D-language.

The plywood-sheets is held together with this ingenious "Ikea" screw and nut.

In german the bolt and nut is called "Quermutterbolzen und Rundmuttern". It took me quite a while to find out :-)


Can it be used for miniatures? Maybe.....

3D-printed Queen Anne Chairs in 1:48 scale.

More to come.
/Niels

Hinges (Nightmare)

It is hard to get small hinges in the right size or shape. When I started making miniatures I bought a lot of hinges from several sources because then I just could go to my hinges drawer and select the right hinge for the piece I was working on. Reality is another story :-)

Below is a mockup to see how the hinge fit in the current project. To the right is the smallest hinge I had in my stock and I didn't like it. The hinge is too large.

So I had to make my own. First I draw the hinge parts in the right dimensions and then cut the parts from a piece of  0.1mm brass-sheet using my cnc.  That was an expensive experience because I broke a milling-cutter in the first try. But I made a hinge in the right size.

The hinges was then made using the photo etch technique. Here comes the nightmare :-)
The first sheet I etched from the same 0.1mm brass sheet had parts for 96 hinges but after etching and trying to assemble the first hinge I discovered that the brass was too thin. When opening and closing the hinge it just fall apart. Then I tried etching 0.2mm brass using the same layout.
Doubling the thichness to etch also doubles the etching time and that gives problems with socalled underetching and I haven't thougt about that. So back to the drawing board and after a few more trial and errors I managed to make this sheet of hinge parts.

For assembling the hinges I made this needle nose pliers. It is ground from a cheap fleamarket find (don't take the best from the toolbox).





 

5 hinges before next step



To ensure that the pin stays in place I decided to solder the pin in place.
Why not glue? Because glue is hard to control in small spaces and can easily make the hinge unusable.
For soldering I use solderpaste normally used for soldering small electronics. The solderpaste contains flux and pewter and can be applied very acurately in small amounts. I got mine from ebay and despite the small container says something about a shelf life of 6 months and cool storage it works well after about two years in a drawer.

Here is some solderpaste on a bottlecap (diameter 28mm) Half of the paste that the red arrow points to is placed on the hinge.

The hinge is placed on a heat resistent surface.

The hinge is heated a few seconds with a heat blower.

Solderpaste before heating

Solderpaste after heating. The solder flows nicely into the hinge,

After the other end of the pin is cut off  the hinge is ready for use.

Have fun
Niels