For our latest and most daunting project, I was asked to create a ring using Fusion360 and Meshmixer, and BOY did it come with some issues. I began by creating a simple 1.75mm wide ring “base” in Fusion360. I also used the filet tool to add some beveling on the inside of the ring for comfort. This bit wasn’t too hard, as Dr. Field provided step-by-step instructions online. I was happy with the result, although I did need to re-size it a few times.
After a while, I decided it was time to get customizing. The first ring was created by “drawing” swirl designs on the outside face of the ring with an extrusion tool. This file was unfortunately lost due to my saving it on a lab computer. For the next iteration I decided to change my design using a leaf-shaped stamp. ….This did not work either…. The leaf stamp was inverted, and not knowing how to fix it I created all sorts of sharp angular edges. Rather than deleting the file and starting over, I ran with the idea of sharp angular edges instead. They looked like ice!! Being an avid skier I ran with the idea and created the final project, an ice ring. I continued to use and extrude the inverted leaf stamp and created what I believe looks like a pile of snow and ice. I then smoothed out the edges to have the ice to fade into the lover half of the ring. I love it!
However my biggest struggle was sizing. NONE OF THESE RINGS FIT.
I re-sized the ring base itself in Fusion360 a few times, but eventually got fed up with that and started in Meshmixer anyway. Meshmixer thankfully has a re-sizing tool!…. which didn’t help much. I measured the ring and my finger multiple times to try and determine the difference in size, but it seemed that even ring i printed was too small of too big, despite going up by very small and measured increments. Never the less I eventually found one that fit, and I am very excited to get the ring back (in professional plastic) from Shapeways later this month.
UPDATE!!!: I have finally received my ring from Shapeways.
I am so happy with the final product. I decided to order it in black standard plastic, which I think is a very nice contrast to some of my other smaller and shinier store-bought rings. The fit is finally right, and their methods of printing allowed for an impressive amount of detail on my “ice”.
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