I made some pretty fantastic looking guitar picks. One is made from copper and the other is made from titanium.
I've been drawn to circle packing for some time now and have wanted to make something using the technique for ages. I wanted to make something else out of titanium and because it's a pretty expensive material to work with I figured that circle packing might be a good way to cut down on weight without giving up much structurally. And it looks cool.
The titanium pick is laser sintered from titanium powder.
The copper pick was printed in wax and then cast traditionally.
Both picks have a slight ridge that grows up the middle of the pick. The shape is very similar to that of the B2 Stealth Bomber. The ridge that runs through the middle gives the pick some additional structural support.
I wasn't sure what would come out of my little experiment with titanium and Icelandic beach pearl - but despite some setbacks the Reynisfjöruperla Hengiskraut is complete!
The pendant is made from 3D printed titanium and was manufactured for me by the good folks at i.materialise. Originally I wanted the Reynisfjöruperla - a beach pearl from Reynisfjara Beach - to float in a titanium embrace. You'll remember from my previous entry on this project that the pendant snapped when I attempted to mount the pearl.
After it snapped I contacted Dmitriy at i.materialise to see if 3d printed titanium was by nature brittle and if there was any way to design around that property - such as taking account of any anisotropic properties of the metal. He noted that the pendant might be slightly less strong in the direction perpendicular to the Z axis (though he doubted that was the case with my model). After checking, the titanium team concluded that it's possible to break a 4-5 mm thick titanium part with basic tools and manual force! The grooves on the model made it around 3 mm thick in certain areas which could have amplified the force I applied thus making the part break more easily than otherwise.
Live and learn.
I put a LOT of work polishing the titanium and wasn't just going to give up. I sat on the pieces for a bit until I came up with drilling a hole to match the diameter of the broken parts and assembling everything to look like the metal had pierced the Reynisfjöruperla.
After boring through the Reynisfjöruperla with my trusty Dremel I used a combination of shaped bits to widen the opening just enough for the two halves to connect.
Testing the fit of the drilled hole.
Left side of the pendant (and my glamorous left foot!)
My little setup. Note epoxy top left.
Powder from drilling to be mixed with epoxy.
Black powder epoxy.
Once I fit the metal pieces back together and decided on the placement of the Reynisfjöruperla, I mixed some two part epoxy with some of the drilling powder. After assembly it was time to wait.
Here is what it looked like after a couple of hours - well after a little bit of polishing, too.
I'm pleased with my Reynisfjöruperla Hengiskraut, especially next to the ring I picked up from Gullkúnst Helgu in Reykjavík.
EDIT: Shoutout to Benni R for letting me know the correct way to turn Reynisfjara Beach pearl into a real Icelandic word.
A good guess Jérémy ?
It actually would be Reynisfjöruperla (singular = pearl) or Reynisfjöruperlur (plural = pearls).
Icelandic can be a bit tricky ?.
It also feels very nice when
