This Blog is all about what I am doing right now with my 3D printer – I will post regularly on my successes, failures and finished results!
Each new blog entry appears here, with the previous posts available below it – so the very latest news is always the first thing you see!
I didn’t explain why I was trying to make an Elephant clock in my last post, and you may indeed wonder why an elephant clock? – well why not I say! No seriously, I had come across them first in the V&A museum, and then saw more on my regular trawls over the years through the internet for ideas! They seem to be of two kinds, Bronze or gold elephant on marble base, or white china, hand painted in a riot of colours and gold – and I love both!
But the perfect storm combination for me to make one, fell into place with the advent of me getting to grips with my 3D printer, and getting a commission to do a fireplace where a wallpaper sample was sent to me for the room the fireplace was going in, and it had an elephant on it. Elephant wallpaper sounds a bit mad but it is a fantastic one that would not look out of place in Brighton Pavillion!
Oh – and I love elephants! (I even had an Indian elephant with howdah on my wedding invitations!)
You can see that the print looks nothing like the image on the screen, this is because I have printed it with raft (to increase the footprint and so decrease the danger of detaching form the build plate) and supports (to support ! the overhanging or fragile bits of the print).
These are removed to reveal something that looks a bit more like the desired finished object….
You can see from the pictures above that the clock is starting to look more like the computer file now that it has had its raft and support removed. The next stage is to clean up the surfaces before priming and painting.
I printed two sizes of this piece as I was not sure which would work best, but this is going on a really big fireplace and actually the larger one is just the right size.
The trouble is now I can’t decide whether to make it a white china clock on a marble base or a gold clock with enamel on marble base… I think looking at it in these photos my gut instinct is to go for gold and bronze elephant on a dark green marble base with gold details.
I’ll post pictures of the finished clock here, but think I may clean up the smaller clock and do it as white china with colour details and gold accents just to see what one would like!