More exciting things happening

I find myself with way more things to do now that I am not teaching and I am on a little break from the workshops.  I have been trying not to spend too much time on social media.  As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure I am going to cancel my personal facebook account and maybe only have my artist account.  Since my father passed away a number of years ago, the people who were connected to him have been activated on facebook. I am not sure if they know what social media is let alone how it could be useful instead they post hate-speach and misinformation (radical right wing nonsense).  I have tried to engage a number of times with them "Hey I know you, what are you being this way?" Well much like telling my wife to relax, its like throwing gasoline onto a fire!  So instead of wasting time with them I am now removing them from my life, along with all the other nonsense on facebook.  So if you need me I will be here, on instagram OR on twitch!  https://www.twitch.tv/arthurhash

So a couple of updates!  First we are launching another round of Rhino workshops the intro is almost sold out! https://courses.thebenchri.com/  Before that starts up I have been trying frantically to get the studio setup for some free lance modeling jobs I have coming up. So the 3D printer has been a priority. This will be the first time I am using the wash station!  

Also, last week is was my birthday and it was amazing. So much love. A good pal of mine sent me some truffles from the milk bar! (Loring you son of a bitch! I almost ate a whole box by myself!)  Liz bought me a canoe! I made myself a gorilla ring, I got some fancy to-go cocktails form ISCO spirits and there was an awesome zoom gathering!!!

Oh man.  So much love! Thank you everyone!

Work has been crazy busy!  Its like the holiday season is happening now! I am literally cranking out four to fives rings a day!! Bananas! I recently did an insert ring (two bands that receive an engagement ring) and a "copy ring" which is were someone has a ring they love but it is costume jewelry and I have to make it into a "real"  ring. 

We also made pizza and went for a couple hikes here and there. 

Liz has a big virtual event coming up at work https://metalwerx.com/marketplace 

I am going to try and post more.  I should have a store update soon along with some fundraising/auction items for the fires out west, BLM and of course the ACLU.

=

 

ANYCUBIC wash and cure station/hurry up and wait

 

A number of months ago I bought an Anycubic wash station. I think it was on sale for $130. If you read my blog you know that I purchased a Phrozen 4K to try and print some jewelry pieces. While messy it is a great printer.  It has its quirks but for the resolution and price it is hard to beat. As far as I can tell it's direct competition is the Anycubic Photon. While being a lot cheaper but it doesn't come close to the resolution I need for 3D printing parts that require stone setting or fine texture. So when I was shopping around the Phrozen was the one I landed on.  

Now that the studio is all setup I can start setting up my print area again. So far everything with the wash station seems to be working well. It seemed to be packed well. It comes with a couple accessories specific to the Anycubic photon (I will skip those). There is what I will call the "dangler" which allows you to take the platter off the Photon and put it right in the wash station....which is great but unfortunately doesn't fit the screw for the Phorzen platter. I will probably just file it to fit. There is also a dunk basket for larger parts (which will I probably use more often than the dangler until I figure out the dangler) 

From what I can tell it is just a magnetic stir station with a propeller in the bottom of the container. If you take the container out you can put in a small platter that rotates slowly to cure your part. It looks to all be anodized aluminum with parts that neatly nest into place.

So far this is what I like:

• Small foot print: I am printing jewelry so it is perfect size
• You can rinse and cure at the same time: It does one thing at a time. No chance of messing it up
• The cure station will not work if the shroud it off: you wont accidentally zap yourself with UV rays. 
• It is about the same size as the Phorzen 4K: which means the lunch trays that I bought from Amazon will fit under both just incase something leaks when I am not around.

Things I don't like:

• I can't use it yet because there is a shortage of IPA 
• It is a lot of IPA: It is 3500 ml that is almost a gallon of IPA just hanging out
• It came with a spare bearing :This makes me think that might be a problem in the future (maybe this is a pro?)

So there is no happy ending currently.  I don't have a place that I can source IPA.  If anyone has used something else to clean resin parts successfully, please let me know.  Once I start printing (which will be very soon) and find some IPA. I will circle back and post the results. Also I need to buy some gloves and paper towels to process the prints. Who would have thought that a virus would bring resin printing to its knees!

Bad news then good news and then more bad news...then more good news?

I had to take a quick break from the blog because life has been a little nuts.  First, the workshops have been going off without a hitch! Really great.  Everyone seems to enjoy them and I am figuring out quickly what is working and what is not working. We are moving on to more advanced specialized courses and hope to have more to offer soon. https://courses.thebenchri.com/  If anything it has been great to interact with people even if it is over the zoom. 

A bit of sad/bad news. Liz's mother passed away.  It wasn't a surprise but it was still tragic.  Liz's mom had been sick for quite some time.  She has been living down in Florida for over ten years now and for the last year Liz's father moved down there to take care of her.  We got a call around three weeks ago letting us know that she wasn't long for this world. After talking about it, we decided that Liz would go down there to be with her before she passed. Flying was insane apparently. The airline promised that the plane would be at 1/3 capacity (it was full). She has been away for three weeks now. I hope she can return soon. We haven't decided how she is going to get back.  Since flying was crazy she might drive but it is almost 24 hours without traffic. UGH. I hate that I couldn't comfort her when all this went down. With the workshops and work I have been working 12 hour days. 

With a lot of states going into phase two I have been called back into work.  Which is crazy.  We have been busy! super busy! Like Xmas busy.  I guess everyone is scrabbling to get their weddings back on track and want custom engagement rings....right away! I am lucky that I don't have to interact with the public and the owner of the store is providing masks at the door and there are four or five hand sanitizing stations around the store. 

Our studio is in full gear.  We finished insulating and the drywall has gone up. We don't have long now before we can move it.  We still have the outside, the flooring, the lighting and the ventilation. I bought all the furniture and it is now living in our bonus room (I may have jumped the gun on that) The cats have been using them as a jungle gym. 

lasergist

My other parts from a different laser cutter came in the mail yesterday. I am VERY happy with these parts. I used a company called lasergist. Much like Shapeways they are very cheap, provide a great service but have almost non existent customer service.  They only laser cut stainless steel. They only cut 304 polished and 316 brushed. They only cut in 1mm, 1.5mm, 2mm or 3mm thicknesses. But....the cutting is fairly cheep. I cut enough parts to make four knives for $168.00 (13 parts with lots of holes). $170.00 is super reasonable considering how beautiful the parts are. As far as knife making, the type of stainless they are using is not very useful. Their website is pretty bare with no indication of where they are located or how long my order would take. Honestly I thought it was fake. I took the gamble and I am very happy I did. Just for the record they are located in Greece. I order on Jan 28th and received all of my parts Feb 3rd. If I had one complaint I would argue that the parts are just slightly off. I have not yet slapped a caliper but some of the small straight cuts seem to be off by a mm or so.  Again, it is hard to complain. 

I just placed an order for a large, tab and slot stainless shelf that I will TIG weld together. It was $130.00, measuring around 10" across the top. (renders at the bottom)