#Foredom

[dimeyshine]

On this way to a new home ✝️

[studios0student]

Determining the "best" wood carving machine can depend on various factors such as your budget, specific requirements, and level of expertise. However, some popular and highly regarded wood carving machines as of my last update include:

CNC Router Machines: Computer Numerical Control (CNC) routers are versatile machines capable of carving intricate designs into wood. Brands like ShopBot, Axiom Precision, and Inventables (makers of the X-Carve) offer reliable options suitable for both hobbyists and professionals.

Laser Engraving Machines: Laser engravers can be highly precise and are excellent for intricate designs and detailed engraving work on wood. Brands such as Epilog Laser and Trotec offer high-quality laser engraving machines.

Handheld Electric Carvers: For more manual control and artistic freedom, handheld electric carving tools like the Dremel series or Foredom tools can be great options. They allow for detailed carving and sculpting work.

Automated Wood Carving Machines: Machines like the CarveWright and the Shaper Origin combine the precision of CNC technology with the flexibility of handheld tools, allowing for precise carving with manual control.

Traditional Wood Carving Tools: While not technically machines, traditional wood carving tools like chisels, gouges, and knives remain popular among skilled artisans for their precision and artistic expression.

When choosing the best wood carving machine for your needs, consider factors such as your budget, the type of projects you'll be working on, the level of precision required, and your familiarity with the technology involved. Additionally, reading reviews, seeking recommendations from other woodworkers, and possibly testing out machines before making a purchase can help you make an informed decision.

[chimerical-creations]

Where do you get your materials for your runes? Do you have any specific brands you recommend? I adore your work!

The glass cabochon "stones" I got at a local craft store. Flower shops/garden centres might have them too because they are often used in vases with cut flowers for decoration (e.g. Michael's stocks them under Floral Supplies → Bowl & Vase Filler → Gems & Rocks). I have a bunch of them in various sizes and colours because I just kept picking up more to add to the stash whenever I found a colour I liked on sale. Sometimes I found cool ones at thrift stores for super cheap.

I have worked with glass stones from about 10mm up to 50mm in diameter. Small cabochons can be tricky to engrave because there isn't much to hold on to. Engraving the topside means working on a very curved surface, and engraving the underside means trying to hold it in a way that it won't rock back and forth too much. I have some squishy rubber drawer liner that I fold up and put under the stones to keep them from sliding around.

When I first started out doing engraving I used some thermoplastic (AKA isomorph) to mould a holder for the stones so I could grip the Dremel in both hands for tighter control, but now I have been doing this so long that I'll grab the rock in one hand and wield the Dremel in the other and just get right to it.

While I occasionally still add to that big stash of glass, I've been shifting more and more toward using predominantly real stones for my projects. A lot of those I buy at a small local independent gem and mineral shop. Been in there so often that sometimes the owner gives me random discounts on the stuff I buy, so that's pretty great. Other rocks I have purchased online from various sources. Healing Crystals used to be my main go-to because they have a large selection and decent wholesale prices on most things, but I haven't shopped there in a while because their stock changes often and lately they haven't had any of the stone types/shapes/sizes that interest me. (Probably for the best anyway, since I already have enough projects on the go that I really ought to finish before acquiring the materials for more.)

Tool-wise I use just a basic Dremel with a flex-shaft attachment for better grip and control. Doesn't have to be Dremel-brand; any similar rotary tool will do. Don't need the flex-shaft either, but it does make work so much easier to have that smaller handpiece in lieu of trying to manipulate the entire motor housing. I picked it up at a flea market for like $10. New it'll cost considerably more, especially if it is Dremel-brand, or something even fancier, like Foredom. Available online and in hardware stores and hobby shops.

My setup looks sort of like this. Different Dremel model and type of bit in the handpiece than what is pictured, but you get the idea.

For the engraving burrs I just use basic diamond burrs, like these:

I buy them off of amazon or aliexpress in no-name bulk packs of thirty identical burrs instead of variety packs because half of these shapes/sizes I rarely use, and if I were to buy exclusively Dremel-brand burrs it would get stupid expensive really quick. The cheapo burrs do just as good a job. The majority of my engraving I do with round burrs from 1-3 millimetres in diameter. Sometimes 4mm or 5mm if I'm working on something with large flat areas in it. For tiny details I will use 1mm cylindrical or the fine-point conical burrs.

I also use safety glasses, hearing protection, a dust mask, and fingerless anti-vibration gloves. All technically optional, I suppose, if you like living dangerously.

Feel free to throw more questions at me if you have any. Σ:3

[studio5150piercing]

We had a ton of inquiries after we posted the trebel clef designs yesterday so we made some more! Thanks for the love everyone. #daithpiercing #kearneynebraska #smallthanks #NOPIERCINGGUNS #5150jewelry #daith #jeweler #foredom #freehugs #freedom #thinkoutsidethebox #iloveyou #lovelife #faithnotfear (at Studio 51/50 Fine Jewelry and Piercing) https://www.instagram.com/p/B6CYBZNgp91/?igshid=1mtpthtdxfup8

[rrenlolz]

EARLY CHRISTMAS PRESENT FROM HUSBAND IS BEST PRESENT. #metalsmith #jewelersofinstagram #foredom

[rookcustom]

Mean Heater on deck for @aloha.assassin @cerakote_hawaii with that Clean AF Black Multi-Cam. You know she had to have a nice FAT Beaver, Shellback, Grip Reduction, Mag Release Bevel, Bronson, FCP, FG Delete, Double Under TG, Take Down Cut. #rookcustoms #cerakotehawaii #cerakote #hawaii #cerakote #camo #blackmulticam #sswsd #tillthatday #perfectbeaver #instagood #picoftheday #art #foredom #police #military (at Honolulu, Hawaii) https://www.instagram.com/p/CAEWT8cJzsM/?igshid=nk7oo3fxdctp

[chainmaillemyheart]

Some handmade tools for my new foredom handpiece #Jewelry #jewellerymaking #metalsmithing #engraving #foredom #tools #jewelrytools #handmadetoolsfromthehandmaker #handmadetools https://www.instagram.com/p/B62eYPHBgiB/?igshid=qodv76ippfdr

[horologicalscience]

Spotted this neat clamp on Foredom’s website. Quite nice.

[jaxonista]

I have never had a “pendant” motor before so was unprepared in how to hang it. Foredom has a really nice part that you can buy so that you can either screw mount the arm to the table or you can use a clamp the part is an additional $45-$55 and I didn’t want to wait to use the motor so I came up with my own solution. I bought a seven dollar clamp-on vice from Menards a $.98 square poplar dowel and a pack of short round poplar dowels. I drilled a hole through the square dowel and put a rounded dowel through it that way I could hang the motor it is clamped on really tight and it has done very well. . . . #diy #makedo #foredom #pendantmotor #sr #motorhanger #cobbled #hangingmotor #jewelrymaking https://www.instagram.com/fauxshowart/p/BuireMjAZh2/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1i2pgggd1q38y

[ramotrading]

Buy easy to maintain rotatory systems & power tools online at the best price. Choose from foredom power chisel, angel grinders and others.

[dimeyshine]

How it starts 🖋️ I’ll be carving these with my foredom live on tt. Same name

[coveredinmetaldust]

BUILDING A MECHANICAL KEYBOARD - PART 2: SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND

When you use a keyboard long enough, the keys will start to lose their surface texture as your fingers erode and polish them from use. This is often referred to as “keycap shine,” and it’s an inevitable part of the keyboard circle of life. The problem is, this “shining” does not occur uniformly. It occurs quicker on the areas you make contact with on the most, leading to an overall inconsistent look.

Though it is interesting to learn things about your typing habits (Apparently I exclusively press the space bar by tapping the right half of it with my thumb.) I rather dislike this, and so I have decided to just get it over with by polishing my keycaps (A set of the recently released MT3 MATT30 3277s) on the board I’m currently putting together.  Well, that and I just really like that glossy finish you see on old terminal keyboards like this one:

A bit of background: I have worked in the jewelry industry for over a decade as a bench jeweler, designer, teacher, luxury watch restoration specialist, and, for a short period of time, as a flute maker. (That last one is an industry-wide unmitigated disaster, let me tell you.) so I am well acquainted with polishing and surface finishes.

When you get into this field, you spend your first several years working as a polisher. Day in, day out, you are polishing things to a mirror finish and coming home coated in red rouge and tripoli. I remember taking a shower every night to get that crap off me, and watching the red water go down the drain like some bad and overdone parody of that scene in Psycho.

You don't start out with this job because it's easy (it’s probably one of the most difficult techniques to truly do well) but because the senior jewelers don’t want to spend their time on something so tedious and time consuming... Just get the apprentice/intern/fresh blood to do it.

Anyway. Noble metals are one thing, but plastic is an entirely different beast—one that has thousands of different evolutionary branches and relatives. I’m only going to be focusing on one of these here: ABS. (Specifically double-shot ABS.) Could these techniques work on PBT too? Maybe, but I can’t make any guarantees because I haven’t tried it.

Through a lot of trial and error on sacrificial keycaps, this method has produced the best results for me:

STEP 1

Wet sand the keycap by hand with aluminum oxide sandpaper. (Under running water if you can, in a bowl/basin of water if you can’t.) My favorite sandpaper is the “Black Ice” line from Norton Abrasives.

I started with 800 grit and sanded them until the texture was gone. Then I moved on to 1,200 grit until all the 800 grit scratches were gone. (Drying it off occasionally to inspect it.) Afterwards I repeated those steps with 2,000 grit and 2,500 grit.

Make sure to really jam your finger in there and move the sandpaper around in random directions. The keycaps I have are the MT3 profile, so they are slightly concave on the top face; I chose to sand them by hand this way to make sure I maintained all the crisp edges and didn’t ruin that nice dish shape.

STEP 2

Using a handheld rotary tool (I have a Foredom TX flex-shaft.) buff the keycap with a 1 inch Stoddard Miniature Cotton Buff loaded up with Lustre Bar polishing compound. (Don't worry, there is a list at the end of this tells you where to buy all that stuff.) 

I mainly use this compound for high polishing Bakelite, but it looks like it worked great here too. I made sure to run the flex shaft at a pretty low speed--I couldn’t tell you exactly what the RPM was since I use a foot pedal, but I can say is that it was like pushing down on the gas pedal of a car to go 20 miles an hour.

Heat is your worst enemy.

When you polish metal, the heat from the friction of polishing will disperse, but plastic will absorb all that heat and it will cause serious problems. The most common one is creating these deep gouges from spots where little “hairs” of plastic were melted/ripped out from heat and friction. These lines will need to be aggressively sanded out; buffing with the compound alone will just accentuate them and make matters worse.

For this reason I do not recommend that you use a buffing lathe. The “slow” setting on most of them is still too fast, and they usually have way too much torque anyway. If you are dead set on using one, then I recommend that you don’t use a buffing wheel larger than 4 inches in diameter. Here’s what my buffing lathe did to the keycap on the slowest setting, and with the softest balloon cloth buffing wheel available:

Step 3

If you did everything else correctly you will end up with a nice shine, but there will still be some very small micro-scratches if you look closely under bright light, and if you turn it to a very specific angle:

This is ok I guess, but I wanted a perfect polish. So after a lot of trial and error I ended up using a product called “Polywatch” to finish the job. This is a small tube of white gunk that you use to polish plastic watch crystals, but it works great on ABS too it seems.

Just squeeze out a small amount of the Polywatch on to the top of the keycap, and then buff the crap out of it by hand with the included cloth for around three minutes. (If you ever lose that cloth, you can use a glasses cleaning cloth instead—do not use a tee-shirt cloth however.) Afterwards, you’re left with a polish that’s damn near perfect. Unfortunately, this also means that it will scratch cartoonishly easily from now on... the grit on your fingertips alone are enough to put tiny scratches into it. But if you’re polishing keycaps, it’s probably not out of a sense of pragmatism.

I have done a lot of experiments to try and expedite this process, but the tedious sanding method has always produced the best results. If you want to read about these various failed attempts and the postmortems detailing what went wrong, stay tuned for the next part where I explore this.

The keyboard I’m building is an 1800 layout with 104 keys, so it looks like I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.

Supply list:

Sandpaper – 800 grit: https://www.mcmaster.com/6835A46/

Sandpaper – 1,200 grit: https://www.mcmaster.com/6835A76/ 

Sandpaper – 2,000 grit: https://www.mcmaster.com/6835A78/ 

Sandpaper – 2,500 grit: https://www.mcmaster.com/6835A79/

Lustre Bar: https://www.gesswein.com/p-4665-lustre-bar.aspx

Stoddard Buffs: https://www.ottofrei.com/Pack-of-10-Stoddard-Miniature-MAXI-Cotton-Buff-1-Mounted

Polywatch: https://www.esslinger.com/watch-crystal-scratch-remover-polywatch-5-grams/

[alchemabotana]

Kindred Spirits: The Installation: Los Platos de Santos: St. Eligius

St. Eligius is an acrylic painting on a terra cotta baking dish. I decided to supplicate to St. Eligius for several reasons. Not only is he the patron saint of metalsmiths, but he is also a patron saint of engineers.

It may not be well known, but I myself am a metalsmith, having spent a good deal of time with my head bowed over a foredom flex shaft or bench pin. I first ventured into metal working to help me heal from PTSD associated with a traumatic childbirth experience and damages caused by my epidural to my spinal cord and central nervous system. Learning how to create amazing fine art in metal certainly lead me down a deep healing journey. Although I am not currently sitting at a bench regularly, I am sure I will return to the world of Metals when the time is right. As a Shaman who works with the Elements regularly in alchemical ritual and ceremonial practices, I listen to their lessons and move with materials as Spirit guides me. Spirit was very adamant about me stepping away from metal work when the pandemic hit. I then was able to finally get an MRI for my brain injuries, and was told any metalworking could have left shards in my eyes that the machine would pull out. But spirit had prepared me and I had not done any fine metal work in 9 months. This is why you supplicate!

Additionally, my fiancé is a Process Controls Technician for an engineering company, as well as being an electrician by trade. It was fascinating to me how St. Eligius brought us together on the left-brain wave-lengths, and is a guide to either side of your brain (left or right) in the creative processes of life. 

I learned later that he is also best known in the UK for being a patron saint of horses, and those that work with them. No surprise, I moved into a home right next door to a horse ranch when my previous home was flooded and uninhabitable. This is why you supplicate!

Installed at Kindred Spirits 537A N Trade St. Winston Salem NC 27101

kindredspirits.ws @kindredspirits_ws

See more of my art on insta @whaplesantonina

Available for purchase on Saatchi Art

Prayer to St. Eligius *Also called St. Eloi

St. Eloi, with your hands you wrought beauty and with your heart you won friends and through both you glorified God. Befriend us, dear saint, and pray that we will use our God-given talents to serve Him. Amen.

Los Platos De Santos is a collection of found plates and kitchen wares, many of them abandoned with me by their owners, and completely forgotten. Like many of my found-object pieces, I am focused on elevating objects and transforming their energy. This Collection is deeply tied to my roots and education in Catholic traditions. More encompassing than Catholic culture, this collection has grown to be expressive of the shared cannon with the Voudou tradition. My shamanic apprentice and Vousidant RJ Walker is often giving me ideas of new Loa to add to our growing collection of patrons. Personally, this collection stemmed from financial insecurity & abuse, which has unfortunately been a major part of my lived experience of the past decade. With each painting, I prayed for a new life.

[comabarcelona]

SANDING IN JEWELRY 

Using the Foredom SR Motor during the sanding process for a pair of silver earrings. A very useful tool when start with the final finishings.

pinterest/how-we-craft-jewelry

[rookcustom]

Those @ottoengineering Noizebarrier Micros ready to be put to use with a bunch of 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 - @down_range_photography Always dropping those Dope AF Pics. #rookcustoms #ottoengineering #rook #drp #saturday #sswsd #Always #hawaii #police #military #instapic #picoftheday #art #foredom #camo #edc (at Honolulu, Hawaii) https://www.instagram.com/p/B__h7BZJ8On/?igshid=1cbhchv7wbg24

[barralrider]

Despite their jokes, virtually all Dads have at some point managed to get laid.

Despite their jokes, virtually all Dads have at some point managed to get laid. (self.Showerthoughts) submitted by foredom to /r/Showerthoughts 10 comments original