MSRaynsford

At last years model engineer exhibition  we had a knob 3D printed for the Blacknose Laser cutter . I thought I'd made a bit more of it at the time and at least included a photo but apparently I didn't. Anyway... We had a whole bunch of them 3D printer and started shipping them out with the lasers but if you get poor adhesion on a layer and a slightly stiff Z axis you can snap the 3D printed ones in half. So just in time for this years expo I took on the challenge of laser cutting a better knob (literally just in time, I should have been in bed 2 hours ago). The knob needs to fit onto a 5.5mm square shaft. Wood is nice to hold but it shears off pretty quickly so I used a mix of wood and acrylic. The acrylic core runs vertically and absorbs a lot of rotational torque, the square and shaft also mates with the Z shaft well. The knurled top of the knob makes it easy to grip.

After seeing my massive marble machine ring lift I was asked to replicate the lift only to make a lifting mechanism for golf balls. This one needed to be motorised, slightly larger but didn't need the spiral so I basically ended up redrawing the whole thing. There was a minor issue with the drive gear shaft shearing off so I replaced the gear with an acrylic version and it seems to be running fine. It works well though and I can't wait to see the rube goldberg it's going to be used in.

I made 6 badges in total but these are the four I am now listing in my web stores, it's not too late to get them for Christmas.  The amusing thing about working on tiny scale items in a massive laser  is that the honeycomb bed just becomes additional work surface and you can keep multiple sheets of wood/veneer ready for cutting on the bed.  

I saved the best for last. I'm really pleased with the stripey candy effect and the blue ribbon.

Another 1 from the trio , I learnt my lesson and simplified this a little. The nose is still 1.5mm wide so it is in danger of being lost. The blue wood veneer is great.

This is the same tree from the Christmas Trio but obviously much smaller. Too small in fact, the dots are 2mm wide and the strips are 1.5mm wide. It's a nice badge but I don't want to make more than one.

There is a small etch all round the edge of these holly leaves. It make a big difference to the final piece but it did increase the cutting time from seconds to 2 minutes, worth it though.