Savage's Fusion Generator

[savagecreature]

The printed pieces of the lid had some roughness here and there caused by Z wobble in the 3D printing process. It's due to how thin the lid segments are. It's not terrible, but I try to do work I won't be embarrassed by, so I decided to hit it with some glazing putty to fill in some of the larger flaws. It'll also remove some of the visible layers. I use this stuff that I buy at the auto parts store.

I apply a squiggle of glazing putty to the surface, and then, while wearing a nitrile glove, I smear it around on the surface making it fairly smooth.  This stuff starts to harden absurdly fast, and once it's started hardening it will no longer stick to the surface you're trying to smooth out, so make sure you apply it in small enough sections that you get it done in time.

     

Don't fret too much about it getting into the holes and slots for the other parts and such, it won't be difficult to remove later.  Just try to get it in any surface irregularities that you don't like and don't put it on super thick.  After I had done that, I set it aside for an hour or so to harden up and I grabbed some of the CnCed parts so I wouldn't just be sittin' there.

I decided to glue the ribs/rings that wrap around the center of the generator so I'd have them ready for later.  In the CAM files (the files the machine uses for cutting them out) the rings are all spit into two halves to reduce the amount of waste, but they have to be reassembled into continuous rings now.  I slapped a piece of wax paper on my work bench so I didn't glue the rings to it, applied some glue to the edge/end of one ring half, put two of them on the paper, lined 'em up and pressed 'em together. Then just I just flipped it around and did the same thing to the other seam.

Depending on what type of glue you're using you can either just hold it while it sets or wrap the wax paper over the top of the seam and set something heavy on top of it while it sets.

I did this about 300 times (or 18. whatever) and  a couple of more times for the top ring, which goes on the inside of the barrel opposite these outer rings. That top ring has a slot cut into it for one of the cylinders that rests on top of it to fit into.  I cut these pieces some time ago, so I don't remember exactly how this happened, but that slot didn't get cut quite to specification.  There's a pretty noticeable mess that I'll have to clean up later. The piece should still work, though, so I'm not planning on cutting another one.

When it was all said and done I had a nice set of rings that'll I'll set aside for now and come back to later

This took just about enough time for the glazing putty to harden up. I cut a piece of 150 grit sand paper, grabbed the generator lid and a piece of plywood I had that's got holes cut in it. There's a hook on the bottom side of this version of the lid that helps keeps the lid on the finished piece that prevents the lid from lying flat on the table.  I used the holes in the plywood to allow the hook some pace but still let me put the main body of the lid flat on a hard surface.

This is the hook on the bottom of slice no. 2. It's gotten dirty and has some glazing putty on it, so it looks ugly, but . . . no one will ever even see it. (stop judging me!)

I took that piece of 150 grit sand paper I had cut and, using the plywood to support the rim of the lid, started sanding by hand around the outside working my way up to the top of the lid and back out again. This glazing putty sands very easily, and it's not difficult to take more of it off than you'd like to.  I often start with 220 or 320 grit to prevent having to reapply after I've sanded off all the filler, but in this case it seemed to me to me that it would have the desired effect.  I continued sanding until I ended up with a surface I was content with when I ran my hand around the surface. It isn't perfectly smooth, but I think it's smooth enough that the filler primer will take care of the rest of it when I get to that point.