Musings and Experiments on the Art and Science of 3D Printing

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Welcome and Introduction

By SublimeLayers Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Welcome to my little corner of the Blogosphere - "Sublime Layers". The name portrays my view of 3D printing technology from experimental, mechanical, design and artistic perspectives. Several years ago I started thinking about the grain of fused FFF (fused filament fabrication) printed objects - the layers, surface fill patterns and infill patterns. Rather than hiding or disguising these visual artifacts, I've developed techniques to highlight and embrace them - much like a woodworker embraces the grain or figure in wood or an artist the texture of the canvas and paint. Here's an example:


This is a close-up of one of my 3D printed fly fishing reels (more on it in another post). You can see the layer lines and fill and infill patterns and how they are incorporated into the work. I've spent countless persnickety hours developing and improving these techniques. The results require a holistic approach starting with the 3D printer itself (the mechanics have to be near perfect, etc), the design of the parts that allow them to be exposed in this way, the slicing techniques used to achieve the results and even the materials and how those are handled.

I've spent 7 years building 3D printers, pushing the limits of their capabilities, perfecting my design skills, and contributing to the community. Much of my work appears in various places like the excellent SeeMeCNC delta printer forum, the Lulzbot forum and many other user groups and blogs - you can find me by my username, mhackney. I continue to contribute to these but, moving forward, I'd like to have a home of my own, a place where I can capture my ideas and discoveries and know where to find them again later. Some of the posts I make here will be links back to prior work but a lot of it will be new and undocumented anywhere else until it is "ready for prime time". These posts will document my musings, explorations, ideas, trials & errors and, hopefully, successes.

Cheers,
Michael

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