3D Printed Mold for Leather Pocket

[dikman]

Hmm, never come across that stuff before. I thought UV generally took time to affect material (my floors certainly took months to fade!!). This happened within a couple of hours. The dashboard top in a car here in Oz gets bloody hot in the sun!

[chrisash]

How thick and what colour was the PLA, I guess the car interior by the windscreen could be close to double the outside temp, Also temp is normally given as in the shade by our met office measured in those littl white boxes with slatted sides

Edited November 19, 2019 by chrisash

[sbrownn]

16 hours ago, Scoutmom103 said:

I'd be interested in seeing the molds you made and the pattern and the pieces.   The bag looks nice.   

I'll post them over the next week or so.

[sbrownn]

12 hours ago, Bert51 said:

Can you use a more heat resistant PLA or Nylon with your printer or would you have to upgrade to a different printer?

Bert.

Would not have to upgrade but seriously, I haven't needed to smooth the molds.  I have designed the molds and worked out a process where the pattern doesn't imprint on the leather unless I want it to.  One of the nice things about 3D printing the molds is that they can be pretty exact dimension wise and you can put a draft on them.  Adding draft makes the mold halves easy to separate and helps minimize sidewall abrasion.  

[sbrownn]

7 hours ago, chrisash said:

Think the problem is UVA rather than just heat, here in the UK are some possible solutions you might consider, guess they are available Down under 

https://www.makershop3d.com/282-filament-outdoor-use

Not sure how UV would have any effect on a leather pattern or mold unless you were going to leave them out in the sun.  In any event I have made and used over a hundred molds and patterns and never had an issue with either temperature or UV.  There are some strength issues which could probably be resolved by using nylon but I've never made enough of any one thing in enough quantity to wear out a mold.  A few years back I made about 50 pocket and flap type knife sheaths and while the mold started to show a little wear, it was still functional.  I would think that 3D printed molds and patterns would be a boon to a small shop producing limited quantities.  

[HaloJones]

Now that is a nice looking bag!

[sbrownn]

1 hour ago, HaloJones said:

Now that is a nice looking bag!

Thanks,

It shows a little wear and there are some things I am going to change.

[dikman]

sbrownn, I think the references to UV were to my comments on my GPS sunshade "melting" on the car dashboard, not your excellent creation. My apologies for sidetracking your post (I have a habit of hijacking threads ).

As for showing wear, that's the beauty of leather it ages gracefully as it's used.

[sbrownn]

2 hours ago, dikman said:

sbrownn, I think the references to UV were to my comments on my GPS sunshade "melting" on the car dashboard, not your excellent creation. My apologies for sidetracking your post (I have a habit of hijacking threads ).

As for showing wear, that's the beauty of leather it ages gracefully as it's used.

No problem, that's what I figured but added a comment just in case.

[sbrownn]

It looks like the STL files are too large to attach.  Anyone have any idea as to how to get around that?

[dikman]

One possibility is to put the whole thing up on thingiverse, but that depends whether you want to make it publicly available.

[chrisash]

My eco-flo stl i loaded on this site came in at 1.07mb, I guess that must be near the limit per upload, many forums seem to have either a 1mb or 1.5mb limit

[sbrownn]

17 hours ago, dikman said:

One possibility is to put the whole thing up on thingiverse, but that depends whether you want to make it publicly available.

Thanks, that's a good suggestion. 

I'm not interested in making any money off my work so why not make it available to anyone that wants to use it?

[RockyAussie]

Are you trying to load all the stl's together. Most stl's I do are way down in size compared to the 1.4mega you can load in one go here on LW. I have found that if the load fails when you go too high you need to go off and come back and start again. The previous writing you've done will be remembered and put there again and you only need to put in the smaller file size (less than 1.4mg) This bobbin carrier done in my AutoCad is only 39kb. BOBBIN CARRIER.stl

[sbrownn]

On 11/22/2019 at 5:33 PM, RockyAussie said:

Are you trying to load all the stl's together. Most stl's I do are way down in size compared to the 1.4mega you can load in one go here on LW. I have found that if the load fails when you go too high you need to go off and come back and start again. The previous writing you've done will be remembered and put there again and you only need to put in the smaller file size (less than 1.4mg) This bobbin carrier done in my AutoCad is only 39kb. BOBBIN CARRIER.stl

I'm not trying to load them all together.  I may be able to go back into my CAD program and create them at a lower resolution which may result in a smaller file size.

[sbrownn]

On 11/24/2019 at 1:24 PM, sbrownn said:

I'm not trying to load them all together.  I may be able to go back into my CAD program and create them at a lower resolution which may result in a smaller file size.

Didn't work.

[chrisash]

Not sure what CAD package you are using, but in Fusion you have the ability when you go to convert to a 3D Print, to adjust the number of triangle before its converted to the STL and then to slicer software

[sbrownn]

21 hours ago, chrisash said:

Not sure what CAD package you are using, but in Fusion you have the ability when you go to convert to a 3D Print, to adjust the number of triangle before its converted to the STL and then to slicer software

I use SolidWorks and it has the same feature but changing the resolution doesn't seem to change the file size.

[Boczs]

were you able to upload to thingiverse?