A gift for a friend.
2 Likes
That sounds like such a thoughtful and creative gift!
1 Like
My new mailbox post.
I don’t usually post what I get up to, but I thought this was different enough to be interesting.
The Triceratops was a large herbivorous dinosaur that lived around 68-66 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period. It grew up to 30 feet (9 meters) long and could weigh as much as 12 tons. Its skull, the largest of any known animal, living or extinct (surpassed only by its close relative the Pentaceratops), could reach up to 8 feet (2.5 meters) in length. The skull featured three prominent facial horns and a large bony frill. Triceratops are one of the most commonly catalogued fossils, and are primarily known from findings in the Hell Creek Formation in western North America.
I used a scan from the National History Museum in Vienna. Triceratops horridus (NHMW-Geo 2000z0185/0001) - 3D model by Natural History Museum Vienna (@NHMWien) [9fca525] - Sketchfab
(The original is a messy 3d scan and not available for download, but I have a cleaned up copy if anyone wants it 
)
The original model was cleaned up in Blender and I then sliced it up according to how I thought I could get the best detail. This is one of those times where a person dreams of a 6-axis machine. I used a 3/8in and 1/4in endmill, and a 1/8in tapered ballnose. The project was carved from pink foam board insulation(first time), using roughly four 4x8 sheets in total: two 2-inch sheets, one 1-inch sheet, and one 1.5-inch sheet. I used different thicknesses so i could mix and match, allowing me to glue up layers in half inch increments for carving (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, and 4). I might have got away without the second 2inch board with better planning.
It took 22 double-sided carves and a little over 100 hours. The carvings turned out fairly clean but still required some cleanup. I used Super77 spray adhesive to glue the layers together before fiberglassing the entire piece. After that, I base-coated it with a rattle can, then painted it with standard acrylics, and finished it with 2K flat top coat. In total it was somewhere between 150 and 200 hours including the carving time. I am fairly happy with it. The mailbox is not level with the ground which bugs the hell out of me(its probably fixable with some work, but I’m calling it done) Also I painted it outdoors in the sunlight, but it sits under a tree. There is a lot of subtlety in the paint that is lost in the shadow of the tree. It looks in the pictures like a solid color, but it most definitely is not. Those are my only real complaints. Lesson learned if I do something like this again.
I’m not really sure what the rules are regarding pictures, so I created an imgur album with some additional photos. I really should have taken more of the process. Triceratops mailbox post - Album on Imgur
I am happy to answer any questions or share any files, or take additional photos if there is a specific part of it you want to see.
15 Likes
Now that is cool and VERY creative!
Pony
Wow! Humbled! I can’t wait to show my kids.
Thinking outside the box, with no offense to those of us thinking inside it. You have heavily expanded the scope of thought for the use of 1F/CNC machines! Certainly your neighbors are envious of creativity as am I.
I could envision a market for your work to museums or theme parks.
1 Like
You did an amazing job on this!
I love this thread!
I’ve had my laser up for a few months and today I decided to try something new (for me, at least). Backstory: My wife’s birthday is Wednesday, and she loves our dog more than anything on Earth. I wanted to make a card with the dog on it. I took a photo and created some woodcut/linocut vector art from it in Inkscape. I brought that into Lightburn and after a couple of tries got the speeds and feeds down to make an approximate 1.5mm deep burn into some scrap walnut that I had. Thankfully, the first burns were way too deep and the one that worked was just a little over an hour, (vs the first one which was going to take 5hrs!) 
After that, I got a block print kit at Michaels and rolled out some ink on the freshly lasered surface with the brayer and transferred to some card stock. After about a dozen or so tries, I got one I was happy with for her card.
Overall super fun project and if I do another block print cut on the laser I think I’ve got the process down so that it’ll only take an hour or two instead of most of a day. 
Cheers,
Ryan from Oregon
4 Likes
Love this project. Very personal and meaningful. Where did you get that large slab of honeycomb?
1 Like
Thanks Charles! I found the honeycomb on Amazon. I couldn’t find one that fit the whole work area, but it’s all sufficiently big for my needs so far.
NEJE Large Honeycomb Laser Bed Working Table with 530x850mm (20.87 x33.46 Inch), Engraving and Cutting Tool Max 4/3 Max /3 Max V2 /3 Pro /3 Plus /3 Max/Master 2s Engraver CNC Machine https://a.co/d/7JWL1ls
1 Like