You can't cut balsa with a CNC, can you?
Anyway, cutting the fins is half (or maybe more) of the fun for me (even if I complain about it.
)
Zylaxus: a dubious build thread
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Anyway, cutting the fins is half (or maybe more) of the fun for me (even if I complain about it.
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modeltrains
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The 'hands on the medium while shaping it to taste' sense and experience is a thing.Anyway, cutting the fins is half (or maybe more) of the fun for me (even if I complain about it.
Should have no issues cutting balsa, just need to play with speeds/feeds.You can't cut balsa with a CNC, can you?
Anyway, cutting the fins is half (or maybe more) of the fun for me (even if I complain about it.
I just love being able to cut another set after I crash my first prototype.
Well I will confess that I would never hand-build a second copy of this one.
I shouldn't overstate my case, I have nothing against laser cutting in general (probably more useful to me than CNC). I *have* had fins laser-cut before when precision was required, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat when necessary. If I had a laser cutter I'd probably use the hell out of it.
But that said, given the very small number of builds I'm able to tackle each year, it's just as well that the builds are hard and fin cutting consumes a bunch of my time, at least when they're nuts like in this design.
Here's my last ping pong ball, painted up with the same neon orange process I used for the insides of the pods on my Angled Invader. It's a really electric orange, impossible to capture in a photo. I fiddled with the color of the image quite a bit and still couldn't get the shade to match what I saw in real life, but I got reasonably close at least.
I think it looks pretty good (sorry no hidden numbers this time AFAIK). I haven't drawn in the black lines yet because I'm reserving the option of painting over the white with a second color.
And so today I continued my quest to keep Michael's in business $1.79 at a time by picking up a couple more neon paints. And so here are three options, hastily and messily applied to a piece of foam-core.
From left to right, that's orange-lemon, orange-raspberry, and creamsicle.
The yellow is *really* bright; the pink less so but still quite vibrant. Again, the picture doesn't quite capture it. I don't relish the idea of filling in all the white areas (it's tedious work) but if I were to decide that it would make it better than I'd be willing.
I think it looks pretty good (sorry no hidden numbers this time AFAIK). I haven't drawn in the black lines yet because I'm reserving the option of painting over the white with a second color.
And so today I continued my quest to keep Michael's in business $1.79 at a time by picking up a couple more neon paints. And so here are three options, hastily and messily applied to a piece of foam-core.
From left to right, that's orange-lemon, orange-raspberry, and creamsicle.
The yellow is *really* bright; the pink less so but still quite vibrant. Again, the picture doesn't quite capture it. I don't relish the idea of filling in all the white areas (it's tedious work) but if I were to decide that it would make it better than I'd be willing.
What might help that, if you care enough to bother, is to add some UV to the room light, or just shoot in sunlight. They don't call these "florescent" paints for nothing. But it's really not very important.
It should come as no surprise that I like the orange-lemon best of the three.
A few times, I've looked into getting a laser cutter and found that the affordable ones are low powered and lack safety features like enclosures, the painfully priced but possible ones are of dubious chinesium quality, and the good ones are just plain out of reach. A CNC router is an affordable substitute for most purposes, and has other capabilities that I might use one day. I seem to be talking myself into buying one right here before you. But then, I only need a free Thursday evening or a vacation day to go use the laser cutter at the not-so-local public library. And I would definitely use a vacation day to go laser cut those fins out of plywood.
lakeroadster
When in doubt... build hell-for-stout!
That orange is perfect... I wonder if it'll fade over time?
Look energized!
Not sure why it would, especially given that I'll be storing it in a very low-UV environment (i.e. my basement). Anyway, if it looks good long enough for me to take beauty shots I'll take it.
I'm not sure if I like the orange-lemon as much as creamsicle, but I definitely like it better than the raspberry. I'm doing a higher-quality test of the orange-lemon to get a better idea of what it'd really look like. Gotta use up some of these paints.
That just means you gotta build more rockets.Gotta use up some of these paints.
Sounds delicious, are you going to offer tastings?
The solution to *most* problems, if we're being honest.That just means you gotta build more rockets.
When this is over I might genuinely need to get a tub of rainbow sherbet just to get it out of my system (or, rather into my system).
Just let me know the time and place.
I can't emphasize strongly enough how impossible it is to capture the true look of these neon paints in a photo. It's quite frustrating. So take these pictures with a grain of salt, because it is not what it really look like.
Here's the partially-painted creamsicle ping pong ball alongside a "finished" test piece in orange-lemon:
Here's an attempted apples-to-apples comparison. There was quite a bit of photo editing to create this, but at this point I can only do what I can do.
Honestly these are so un-representative of real-world appearance it's probably pointless. In reality, the orange-lemon is *extremely* bright, but there's much less contrast in the pattern, compared to the creamsicle which really shows the contrast of the orange against thewhite vanilla. If I'm going for the brightest ball possible, the orange-lemon is the way to go. If I want a more pleasing pattern then just the orange is better. I think.
It might have looked better with just a few yellow stripes, rather than doing the whole thing, but I don't have it in me to do another test piece. Would I have the nerve to try it on my ping pong ball without pre-testing?Not sure. [edit: No. The pattern is such that there's no obvious way to add in a few yellow lines here and there. I would have needed to create the pattern with that in mind beforehand. That idea will have to remain completely theoretical.]
I will not be Futuring this thing because it's well protected from handling, and so I don't have to worry about Future dulling the fluorescence.
Here's the partially-painted creamsicle ping pong ball alongside a "finished" test piece in orange-lemon:
Here's an attempted apples-to-apples comparison. There was quite a bit of photo editing to create this, but at this point I can only do what I can do.
Honestly these are so un-representative of real-world appearance it's probably pointless. In reality, the orange-lemon is *extremely* bright, but there's much less contrast in the pattern, compared to the creamsicle which really shows the contrast of the orange against the
It might have looked better with just a few yellow stripes, rather than doing the whole thing, but I don't have it in me to do another test piece. Would I have the nerve to try it on my ping pong ball without pre-testing?
I will not be Futuring this thing because it's well protected from handling, and so I don't have to worry about Future dulling the fluorescence.
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That's a tough one. Just because I'm procrastinating at the moment, I messed with your image a little. I can't think of any easy way to realize this on a painted ball (so it isn't very helpful), but I wanted to see what it looked like with a gradient.
Aha, a raspberry man. I can dig it.
Were such a thing possible (it isn't), I might go with something forward-back symmetrical, e.g.:
But since it is impossible no point burning too many braincells thinking about it.
In hindsight, I think the best design might have been the orange with splashes of yellow, while still leaving plenty of exposed white. Maybe. How nice it would be to have a clue what I'm doing. A boy can dream.
Were such a thing possible (it isn't), I might go with something forward-back symmetrical, e.g.:
But since it is impossible no point burning too many braincells thinking about it.
In hindsight, I think the best design might have been the orange with splashes of yellow, while still leaving plenty of exposed white. Maybe. How nice it would be to have a clue what I'm doing. A boy can dream.
Also sounds tasty.
Yeah, I like your forward-back symmetry, I think that would look especially good wrapped around a sphere. But I'd have no idea how to pull that off.
Just because I'm still procrastinating, had these two other ideas. One would be torn strips of neon tissue paper glued on (like mod podge) and wrapped around the ball. Another would be to coat the ball in glue, and roll it around it in something colorful, like Fruchten Hagel (also something you could eat, like rainbow sherbert).
I was initially disturbed to see that image of what appears to be sprinkles on bread. Then I looked it up and found that that image is right off the product package. So that is a thing. And I was no less disturbed.
But I confess I am curious about it now.
As for the ball, there are for sure a billion possible techniques to decorate it. Someone more artistic than I could do much better than I am doing here, but I’m too tired to keep experimenting.
But I confess I am curious about it now.
As for the ball, there are for sure a billion possible techniques to decorate it. Someone more artistic than I could do much better than I am doing here, but I’m too tired to keep experimenting.
I really like this idea.
As far as how to do it (and I acknowledge you won't, and also I won't but this would be my approach if I did), I'd start by airbrushing the background gradient. Then I'd use a very opaque paint such as gouache to do the bright lines, either a bright color or white to be gone over again with dayglow paint. Then I'd do the black lines, probably with a Sharpie.
I'd also do some tests with clear coating. If it didn't wreck the appearance, I'd prefer to have it protected.
Yes, I think pre-painting the gradient (with an airbrush or whatever) would be The Way, if this was the sort of thing we were going for.
I'd imagine that the ideal pattern (if there is such a thing) would feel a bit more random and less.... well, engineer-like, as is my current design. I do gain a bit of randomness back with the black lines.
It's popular in the Netherlands with kids (actually I've got a box of it here on my desk....). Variations of chocolate on bread are also popular (sprinkles, flakes, spread, etc...).
In the original
I dunno, it didn't look "random" enough for me. As I cracked earlier, it ended up looking like a napkin ring you would find on Etsy.
At this point any design I end up with will be a compromise. Just gotta find something that is decent. Still pondering over whether add the lemon to the ball... I think I'm leaning away from it right now. The fluorescent orange sort of jumps out from the flat white background in a why that I like... unfortunately no one will ever have a clue of what I'm talking about from looking at the pictures I post.
This ball is done. Something about the yellow+orange just wasn't doing it for me, despite the fact that it is extraordinarily fluorescent. I don't know if I made the right choice but at least I made a choice.
Again, the fluorescence of the orange is *completely* different IRL compared to the picture below.
Again, the fluorescence of the orange is *completely* different IRL compared to the picture below.
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Hydro-dipping Results
@NTP2 made good on his word and sent me 3 hydro-dipped ping pong balls in strawberries and cream color scheme. Let's have a look:
My initial reaction was that this was not the swirly sort of pattern I was looking for... but it does have kind of an interesting random splattery sort of look to it (especially the one on the right) and it might look good with the sort of lightning/fissure/squiggle design I put on the others. I was a little concerned about the very rough paint surface; I had seen that before on some videos on Youtube. Presumably the process requires a bit of fine-tuning to get the right paint at the right consistency so that it goes on smoothly.
Anyway, I decided to practice with the one on the left. Sure enough, my black paint pen did not like the surface, and eventually I had an incident the landed my paint pen in the garbage. So I continued with a black Sharpie and got this:
I find myself unable to form a coherent opinion about this vs. my previous creamsicle ball. They both look good.
However, there is a pretty big problem here: as I was drawing the black lines, paint chips were coming off in my hands. In fact, any handling of the painted balls left me with handfuls of paint chips. The outer layer of paint is just not adhered very well, which makes me very nervous. They will (eventually) be well-protected from handling by the cage, but in the meantime they'll need to be masked off, and I don't know if I can trust the surface to survive the process.
In the meantime I think I'll do my black Sharpie job on the "good" ball, and see how it comes out.
@NTP2 made good on his word and sent me 3 hydro-dipped ping pong balls in strawberries and cream color scheme. Let's have a look:
My initial reaction was that this was not the swirly sort of pattern I was looking for... but it does have kind of an interesting random splattery sort of look to it (especially the one on the right) and it might look good with the sort of lightning/fissure/squiggle design I put on the others. I was a little concerned about the very rough paint surface; I had seen that before on some videos on Youtube. Presumably the process requires a bit of fine-tuning to get the right paint at the right consistency so that it goes on smoothly.
Anyway, I decided to practice with the one on the left. Sure enough, my black paint pen did not like the surface, and eventually I had an incident the landed my paint pen in the garbage. So I continued with a black Sharpie and got this:
I find myself unable to form a coherent opinion about this vs. my previous creamsicle ball. They both look good.
However, there is a pretty big problem here: as I was drawing the black lines, paint chips were coming off in my hands. In fact, any handling of the painted balls left me with handfuls of paint chips. The outer layer of paint is just not adhered very well, which makes me very nervous. They will (eventually) be well-protected from handling by the cage, but in the meantime they'll need to be masked off, and I don't know if I can trust the surface to survive the process.
In the meantime I think I'll do my black Sharpie job on the "good" ball, and see how it comes out.
boatgeek
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Would clear coat help hold everything in place? I know you normally do Future so you may not have any in hand.
I don't know.
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