Skeleton Crew Jod Buckle
- Thread starter greenmachines
- Start date
I hear you and deeply appreciate the comment because I see the care and effort you put into your own posts. joberg is one I have leaned on for many, many questions in the past so knows that I am always hoping his tag pops up with the perfect question... which usually reminds me to show pics, list products used or describe a process I completely failed to even bring up.
There are those that show and those that share and on my very first ever post, several people stepped up and taught me how to share and after I openly requested that they keep me on that path, they have popped up and asked the right questions at the right time (or shared, corrected, even argued their point) and made it a place to learn.
Because so many have reached in with the intent to steal, it is difficult to know when to share past a specific level. I have little experience in art or 3d design but those that do are harassed and maligned and coerced by the resellers. We have an entire underclass of scammers who live here and sell everyone's work as their own either onesy twosy or very successfully in the millions in revenue. The history here is deeeeep and the stories are true, real world, skin chilling, wow.
I got lucky and was found by the right members, the ones that love to share and learn. Strangely enough, they have a seriously strong concentration in the Skeleton Crew topics, right now, even though not all are SW fanatics. You would be surprised that some of those that seem to be saying the most heated things (just in these SCrew threads) or just pop up with a 3 word note are the folks that designed famous ORIGINAL props or are the pros in their field. I do my very best to never ask for favors but when I do I show the effort I already went through before asking. Those people live on the other side of the bridges that previous members burned and I respect that. Several, I will not list, simply because they have siloed on purpose.
But, I am always excited to meet members with the same attitude and the Skeleton Crew thread introduced me to several. You and Modery are posting incredibly good content and I was stoked to find two more members. I was seriously surprised to see Modery start date. As in, fully shocked. Unlike many of us, that lurked for years, watching one build that piqued our interest from an internet search and thought the whole site was either like twitter or was about this one movie/build. Mine was from a member who has been offline so long the membership name does not come up in searches but here is the thread:
Thread 'Bard the Bowman costume build - The Hobbit movies' Bard the Bowman costume build - The Hobbit movies
and it is hilarious to reread her work because it clearly stated on the first comment that it was her FIRST EVER BUILD THREAD. But, she is a teacher by nature obviously and I want my threads to look like that one and like modery's Jod thread.
Modery
Member
I've been around here from time to time to look at things, but never felt the need to comment and thus never registered. Once I was committed to doing a Silvo cosplay, it was time to change that - not just being a quiet reader, but becoming a valuable contributor to a shared goal!
Belts are arriving today (Monday morning here), so will be able to share some new photos later today
Modery
Member
4.3cm belt (with 5mm width) is here, here are the current pics of the buckle with back loops (printed at 95% size) and the flat buckle (printed at 100%):
Back loops:
Flat:
Flat left, loops right:
Flat top, loops bottom. Side view
Overall, due to the width of the belt (5mm), the version with back loops looks better to me as it goes through the whole buckle in a much flatter way while still keeping two slight curves at the loops. The flat version feels too rounded
Back loops:
Flat:
Flat left, loops right:
Flat top, loops bottom. Side view
Overall, due to the width of the belt (5mm), the version with back loops looks better to me as it goes through the whole buckle in a much flatter way while still keeping two slight curves at the loops. The flat version feels too rounded
I definitely think this puts that question to bed. The dropback loops are the best choice for solid print and solid cast.
The only exception being the ability to heat the flat one after and allow a bowing back of the side loops. I know I keep coming back to the flat but I just want it to be available for folks that don't understand how to do support printing. I am new to this, so maybe that just isn't a worry.
Do you feel comfortable putting that on a form and heating it up with a blow dryer? Off the belt of course. No reason to damage the leather.
Modery
Member
Is it just me being hopeful or does that now have nearly the same profile as the back set loops?
I just talked with a friend and was asking if he had any experience with 3d home printers. He said no but we both do know someone. So our buddy who sells table games, and from what I hear, tables as well, happens to be a pro. I just knew he was a strategy game guy. LSS, he is a freaking genius in the 3d print realm and gave me a 30 minute run of focused teaching on my printer and my print software. He actually loaded my software, today, on his machine so he could tell me exactly where to change the settings. Walked me through the nearly never fail table preset and cleaning procedure and then talked Jod buckle. He came up with the flat, the recessed bars but far stronger and the idea of printing the front flat and the receding bars separately (with mortise and tenon joint) in 3 pieces in about 2 minutes. All because of the tendency for printed products to break along the plane of printing. Hearing him talk about an object I am describing but he can see in his head and then tells me why printing it a certain way makes it stronger..... I love chatting with people who have mastered their craft. It is like pure gold being handed to you and you just hold your hands out, palms up and they just keep dropping the coins. So, the idea of printing the back bars separately for those wanting screen accurate but without support material..... yep. He said it without me even bringing it up.
Modery
Member
Was thinking of this as well, as I did something very quick & dirty at some point in the past week to strengthen one of the prints. The "regular" version of the recessed bars was good enough for me with the supports, took only a couple of minutes to remove them. But doing a version that is cut, so that you have a flat part and the bars separately, sounds like a great additional option
Newb warning: Most of my experience is CAD, solidworks, adobe (but not fusion). I have had classes in zbrush but never owned it. Most of my software of any value is at work. My home stuff (used for my stuff) is free or old. I am a NEWB in 3d sculpting and in 3d printing. My CAD machines weighed in the tons. My 3d printer can be lifted with one hand, I feel totally lost. But here is my experience so far:
The scanning was done with a Revopoint Miraco, hand held scanner that I borrowed from my aunt. The software needed for its use is Revoscan5. Scanning is a physical skill but limited by the software and the scanner. It is worthy of not only its own thread but its own website for training. Please add links to your favorite training sites. I have a renewing one year subscription to Stan Winston school of Character Arts which costs me less than one tire on my car.
The revopoint miraco has some very good mesh cleaning tools built in and is a VERY important first step if using a scanned image for 3d software sculpting or printing. For camera only scanners, these tools would be found in the computer software revoscan5 and yes, for those paying close attention, those are 2 different softwares. One is IN the miraco, it is a hand held stand alone computer. My aunt's new toy.
It creates a mesh image. Mesh is the net of dots/location points picked out by the scanner to make the rough outline of the object. STL is a mesh type file. This is NOT the same thing as a 3d modeling file. It is not a vector 2d drawing nor a set of 3d geometric parts like Fusion or CAD.
I could not find a program to simply apply the lower flat surface so my scan was empty back. Jintosh repaired a lot of the mesh issues and put the flat back on it. From there I used all free software: Blender, Chitubox, meshmixer, Bambu and finally Creality. The only one I would say to avoid is creality as there are far too many stories of trojan software that have been confirmed even though I am using a creality printer.
Most of the digital sculpting was done in Blender but you MUST run on very high resolution when sculpting or it will corrupt the file. BIG WARNING: Blender has a serious tendency to use the tools at a mirror effect coming through the opposite side..... when sculpting thin parts. This will destroy the entire file. Always turn the tool settings to "faces only". Or just use zbrush instead, if you have access to it.
For some parts I liked the adobe meshmixer sculpt tools better. Making the back bars from the tubing tool was super easy in meshmixer but a total nightmare in blender. However, meshmixer has a huge fault, actually about 3. First, the tool you are using reaches across the entire screen, meaning it is NOT just sculpting the part you are focused on but will reach through to all pieces in a striaght line and do the same thing to them. It is common to find huge blowouts on parts you did not touch. Second, the tools have a bad tendency to ramp up so you have little option but to continuously let go and tool, let go and tool, in sequence. Third, and this one is phenomenally poor programming, the sculpt tools are all still active while you are using the xyz rotational tool (the click, hold, and turn). So, you are spinning the sculpt but are using the little xyz shape to rotate it and part of the sculpt comes up behind the xyz rotation tool and it begins to sculpt that spot with whatever tool is currently selected. So, you get it spun and you release the click and go back to sculpting and there is random friendly fire damage everywhere. I did not get used to just using the scroll wheel as the tools were different than blender. I finally learned to always change to the selection tool before using the rotate tool and then rechoosing my sculpt tool.
I used bambu, revoscan 5 and chitubox to fix holes, smooth or lower file size and to create parts slices because blender's cutting tool was usually destructive to the mesh.
After sculpting to a level I was satisfied with in blender, then adding the pipes (belt loops) in meshmixer, I found that only meshmixers "join" really meshed the parts rather than just assigning a join glue bond. I also further found that it was easier to clear away the mess in meshmixer at the point I smashed the back bars into the clay front sculpt. After this was cleaned and the two parts looked truly joined, could I go back to blender to use its superior clay tools.
One more lap through the mesh softwares to close unseen holes, simply oversculpted mesh (crystal crunchies/clusters) and to delete lost fragments and then off to the printer.
I printed the files I last uploaded to the threads.
New printer, never used one but I could already sense the impending implosion as I began watching youtube videos. As is the norm with youtube, most of the videos are stolen content. People who need to up their content count, so they go around watching other people's videos and then just play act doing the same process but not really understanding what they are doing. Using phrases that don't really mean anything, spewing bad advice and wrong advice.
By the time I had my 5th restart, I was furious about the level of lack. Many, many videos joke about how everyone has to "go through the pain of being a newb". But in all fairness, that would only be because of all the lies and appropriation of other people's work that leads to this "guess til you get it right", mentality.
But having decades of engineering and software background, I could sense where the instructional gap was. Somehow the use and procedures for what people were calling "table leveling" or "zeroing the z" were really people simply not having a clue what they were talking about. It isn't their fault as my installation software skipped all of this information as well as did the written instructions.
The moral to this story is, TRAMMING THE BED and then using a mesh leveling touch scan if available. This is for filament printing, of course. Tramming is the use of the adjustment wheels on the print bed to get all points of the print bed in the same plane as the travel of the print head when the print head is NOT changing height but just moving front to back and side to side. Some printers do this for you. After this process, you can use the touch bed scanner to map if the bed is warped. My printer calls this button "leveling", so everyone who sees it thinks they don't need to tram the bed but you need to do both.
This guy was the only person speaking real logic and not just repeating what he stole from some other persons videos:
I had seen this video in the morning and talked with my gaming buddy later and he confirmed it. First step, clean the bed with soapy water if you can take it off. Then put it back and clean it with alcohol and don't touch it with your fingers again. And here is the protip: light layer of Elmer's purple color changing glue stick and let it dry but then Tramming and then meshleveling touch scanner and then print.
So, my print started before my last convo with a true pro, so no alcohol and no gluestick but I did tram the bed to plane with the print head and did follow the guy's instructions for zeroing the z height. Buuut, I also followed a video specific to my printer to see the control settings on doing the z bit.
Things that even the manufacturer left out: do not tram, nor zero the z before checking which corner is the highest on the bed. Simply following instructions will crash the print head into the table if the corner you started on was the lowest. Do not just start pushing it around when just a hair thickness above the surface, move slowly and if you contact the bed, lower each wheel and start again.
Also remember that when adjusting height, go slow because all adjustments whether physical or digital seem to affect slowly so you may over adjust.
Only after tramming the table height adjusters to match the path of the print head, could I get the filament to stick....AT ALL. It wasn't temperature, not speed, nor a clean surface. I was too high off the table while printing. Before doing the full tram adjustments process, all I got was moving spaghetti. Afterward, I got solid adhesion and a perfect print.
I chose super high quality at .12 in the creality slicer prep program just before loading into the printer. It creates a full gcode file (the directions for printing in x y z directions like CAD machining). I chose slower first level speeds, a wider and lower first layer and used brim foundation wings to get a solid stick to the table. Now I know to use the gluestick but did not on this run. I turned on supports and let it run.
So before I even ran out of my free sample set of filament on my first ever 3d print (ya after 5 spaghetti starts, but used stop to not get past layer one) I got this:
Removed from plate and remove support material:
Clean up with minor scraping and now ready for paint.
The two curves we have been calling the norse horse eyes are very fragile so avoid scraping them when cleaning.
Because of choosing the .12 super quality setting, I have no sign of shelving or layers at all. It is very smooth. I did turn on ironing for the last layer but beware that ironing is NOT recommended as it can collide the head on taller objects and knock them off the print bed. I didn't know when I clicked print.
It is so awesome smooth though:
So now we talk paint. Give me the low down on cleaning and prepping these pla parts. I am assuming a dull silver or pewter is our goal color. My best description is "pot metal". In the real world that is a zinc and sometimes aluminum poor material fir things like screen door handles and knobs.
The scanning was done with a Revopoint Miraco, hand held scanner that I borrowed from my aunt. The software needed for its use is Revoscan5. Scanning is a physical skill but limited by the software and the scanner. It is worthy of not only its own thread but its own website for training. Please add links to your favorite training sites. I have a renewing one year subscription to Stan Winston school of Character Arts which costs me less than one tire on my car.
The revopoint miraco has some very good mesh cleaning tools built in and is a VERY important first step if using a scanned image for 3d software sculpting or printing. For camera only scanners, these tools would be found in the computer software revoscan5 and yes, for those paying close attention, those are 2 different softwares. One is IN the miraco, it is a hand held stand alone computer. My aunt's new toy.
It creates a mesh image. Mesh is the net of dots/location points picked out by the scanner to make the rough outline of the object. STL is a mesh type file. This is NOT the same thing as a 3d modeling file. It is not a vector 2d drawing nor a set of 3d geometric parts like Fusion or CAD.
I could not find a program to simply apply the lower flat surface so my scan was empty back. Jintosh repaired a lot of the mesh issues and put the flat back on it. From there I used all free software: Blender, Chitubox, meshmixer, Bambu and finally Creality. The only one I would say to avoid is creality as there are far too many stories of trojan software that have been confirmed even though I am using a creality printer.
Most of the digital sculpting was done in Blender but you MUST run on very high resolution when sculpting or it will corrupt the file. BIG WARNING: Blender has a serious tendency to use the tools at a mirror effect coming through the opposite side..... when sculpting thin parts. This will destroy the entire file. Always turn the tool settings to "faces only". Or just use zbrush instead, if you have access to it.
For some parts I liked the adobe meshmixer sculpt tools better. Making the back bars from the tubing tool was super easy in meshmixer but a total nightmare in blender. However, meshmixer has a huge fault, actually about 3. First, the tool you are using reaches across the entire screen, meaning it is NOT just sculpting the part you are focused on but will reach through to all pieces in a striaght line and do the same thing to them. It is common to find huge blowouts on parts you did not touch. Second, the tools have a bad tendency to ramp up so you have little option but to continuously let go and tool, let go and tool, in sequence. Third, and this one is phenomenally poor programming, the sculpt tools are all still active while you are using the xyz rotational tool (the click, hold, and turn). So, you are spinning the sculpt but are using the little xyz shape to rotate it and part of the sculpt comes up behind the xyz rotation tool and it begins to sculpt that spot with whatever tool is currently selected. So, you get it spun and you release the click and go back to sculpting and there is random friendly fire damage everywhere. I did not get used to just using the scroll wheel as the tools were different than blender. I finally learned to always change to the selection tool before using the rotate tool and then rechoosing my sculpt tool.
I used bambu, revoscan 5 and chitubox to fix holes, smooth or lower file size and to create parts slices because blender's cutting tool was usually destructive to the mesh.
After sculpting to a level I was satisfied with in blender, then adding the pipes (belt loops) in meshmixer, I found that only meshmixers "join" really meshed the parts rather than just assigning a join glue bond. I also further found that it was easier to clear away the mess in meshmixer at the point I smashed the back bars into the clay front sculpt. After this was cleaned and the two parts looked truly joined, could I go back to blender to use its superior clay tools.
One more lap through the mesh softwares to close unseen holes, simply oversculpted mesh (crystal crunchies/clusters) and to delete lost fragments and then off to the printer.
I printed the files I last uploaded to the threads.
New printer, never used one but I could already sense the impending implosion as I began watching youtube videos. As is the norm with youtube, most of the videos are stolen content. People who need to up their content count, so they go around watching other people's videos and then just play act doing the same process but not really understanding what they are doing. Using phrases that don't really mean anything, spewing bad advice and wrong advice.
By the time I had my 5th restart, I was furious about the level of lack. Many, many videos joke about how everyone has to "go through the pain of being a newb". But in all fairness, that would only be because of all the lies and appropriation of other people's work that leads to this "guess til you get it right", mentality.
But having decades of engineering and software background, I could sense where the instructional gap was. Somehow the use and procedures for what people were calling "table leveling" or "zeroing the z" were really people simply not having a clue what they were talking about. It isn't their fault as my installation software skipped all of this information as well as did the written instructions.
The moral to this story is, TRAMMING THE BED and then using a mesh leveling touch scan if available. This is for filament printing, of course. Tramming is the use of the adjustment wheels on the print bed to get all points of the print bed in the same plane as the travel of the print head when the print head is NOT changing height but just moving front to back and side to side. Some printers do this for you. After this process, you can use the touch bed scanner to map if the bed is warped. My printer calls this button "leveling", so everyone who sees it thinks they don't need to tram the bed but you need to do both.
This guy was the only person speaking real logic and not just repeating what he stole from some other persons videos:
I had seen this video in the morning and talked with my gaming buddy later and he confirmed it. First step, clean the bed with soapy water if you can take it off. Then put it back and clean it with alcohol and don't touch it with your fingers again. And here is the protip: light layer of Elmer's purple color changing glue stick and let it dry but then Tramming and then meshleveling touch scanner and then print.
So, my print started before my last convo with a true pro, so no alcohol and no gluestick but I did tram the bed to plane with the print head and did follow the guy's instructions for zeroing the z height. Buuut, I also followed a video specific to my printer to see the control settings on doing the z bit.
Things that even the manufacturer left out: do not tram, nor zero the z before checking which corner is the highest on the bed. Simply following instructions will crash the print head into the table if the corner you started on was the lowest. Do not just start pushing it around when just a hair thickness above the surface, move slowly and if you contact the bed, lower each wheel and start again.
Also remember that when adjusting height, go slow because all adjustments whether physical or digital seem to affect slowly so you may over adjust.
Only after tramming the table height adjusters to match the path of the print head, could I get the filament to stick....AT ALL. It wasn't temperature, not speed, nor a clean surface. I was too high off the table while printing. Before doing the full tram adjustments process, all I got was moving spaghetti. Afterward, I got solid adhesion and a perfect print.
I chose super high quality at .12 in the creality slicer prep program just before loading into the printer. It creates a full gcode file (the directions for printing in x y z directions like CAD machining). I chose slower first level speeds, a wider and lower first layer and used brim foundation wings to get a solid stick to the table. Now I know to use the gluestick but did not on this run. I turned on supports and let it run.
So before I even ran out of my free sample set of filament on my first ever 3d print (ya after 5 spaghetti starts, but used stop to not get past layer one) I got this:
Removed from plate and remove support material:
Clean up with minor scraping and now ready for paint.
The two curves we have been calling the norse horse eyes are very fragile so avoid scraping them when cleaning.
Because of choosing the .12 super quality setting, I have no sign of shelving or layers at all. It is very smooth. I did turn on ironing for the last layer but beware that ironing is NOT recommended as it can collide the head on taller objects and knock them off the print bed. I didn't know when I clicked print.
It is so awesome smooth though:
So now we talk paint. Give me the low down on cleaning and prepping these pla parts. I am assuming a dull silver or pewter is our goal color. My best description is "pot metal". In the real world that is a zinc and sometimes aluminum poor material fir things like screen door handles and knobs.
Last edited:
smithjohnj
Sr Member
I could not tell from your print, but the grids you are seeing on the back are probably from the infill. Adding a few Bottom layers will give you a closed, smooth back. The larger surface area will help the entire print adhere to the bed better also.
Thank you, I will add that to my procedure list.
OK, sorry guys, I am not trying to flood the thread but this comp, I just did, made me smile. I was so far off, on so many spots, the first time I did the sculpt but after the back and forth, on the thread, and everyone's pics and opinions, this is pretty friggin good for a 2x4 inch detailed object:
I'm pretty sure we rocked it (the 80s slipping out there). This is the lesson I learned early on with therpf, my brain says I am certain of what I see but so is everyone else, certain I am wrong. Always best to listen and take all of it in. It would not look like this if I had gone with what I "saw" when I looked at the exact same photos you were all looking at. Thank you for putting up with the process.
I'm pretty sure we rocked it (the 80s slipping out there). This is the lesson I learned early on with therpf, my brain says I am certain of what I see but so is everyone else, certain I am wrong. Always best to listen and take all of it in. It would not look like this if I had gone with what I "saw" when I looked at the exact same photos you were all looking at. Thank you for putting up with the process.
joberg
Legendary Member
Well, since we had a fairly low quality series of pics, I think that your next job would be to identify suspects from CCTV pictures
Kidding aside, this buckle rocks big time in my book
GreyGuard38
Active Member
Well looky what I just saw on YouTube! Casting the buckle in Zinc! It includes the link back to this thread, too!
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