Hot Trend: Brass, Bronze and Gold Finishes

And we at Mind-2-Matter, know a thing or two about brass.

Currently we are casting brass and pewter with little to no problems. We've also tackled bronze as well!

Brass Impeller

Brass Minimal Surface Cube

Bronze "Lazard" by Justin Kelly

Brass, bronze and gold tone finishes are all the rage in decorating right now (in moderation I can understand, but it sort of reminds me of the Golden Girls and the 1980's horrid bathroom fixtures when overdone). 

The resurgence in popularity apparently has been building since early 2013. I know that when a former employer would offer vintage brass pieces, they'd sell out almost instantly, but I didn't realize how far reaching it was. House Beautiful called it out in December 2012, Apartment Therapy was singing its praises in 2013 and it seems like the love of brass is still going strong, especially at New House New Home. 

There is certainly a nostalgic bent about brass and bronze. Brass always makes me think of my grandpa. One of his favorite pastimes before his hands got too bad was going to the thrift store and restoring brass pieces. 

The Brass Minimal Surface Cube (above) is an awesome example of what Mind-2-Matter can do. This form is based on theoretical mathematical principles that would be near impossible to bring to reality without 3D printing. Using traditional milling methods, it would be impossible to generate this object in brass, bronze or any other metal. We've developed a technique that has made it a reality. 

The Bronze "Lazard" is another example of bringing digital assets to life. It was originally created as a model for a class Justin took and it's been brought to life using 3D printing. We've then used our process to cast in bronze. This is an amazing took for digital modelers who may want to create a physical object from their digital assets!. 

Got an idea? Contact us. We can help you bring your ideas from mind to metal :)

Everyone needs a day off.

I was all super ready to do a run down of Matter Control today. Well, life happens and it was a beautiful day at the beach with my family.

We go to Blind Beach as a family on Jan. 20th to remember my brother, Jesse, each year. It is a place filled with great family memories, I got married there and it's the beach from the end of the Goonies.

Does the arch look familiar?!

It definitely does NOT feel like January. In the least. It was like 70 degrees and sunny with barely a breeze. You can't even get that weather in July around here (we had overcast and cool weather for our June wedding).

I'll be home in the morning (it's about 12:30 a.m. and I'm at the Gnomery) so I will do the video walk through of MatterControl set up on Desky. I've got Screencast-O-Matic installed on Desky and makes recording video/audio a snap. It's also a bit better than just posting some pictures of screen shots.

I have to say that I've done the set up, played around with it and Matter Control should be a breeze for novices. Considering we have only had one printer at home (well, there was a bit of time we had 2 printers at home) and it was being used for making $$$$, I never really got a chance to play around with some of the other controller software out there. I can tell you from watching Justin spend countless hours figuring it all out, none of them are as straight forward as Matter Control.

Matter Control introduced me to the Airwolf line of printers. While we exclusively use Type A Machines Series 1 printers, I'm slightly obsessed with the Airwolf printer. Really only because it has such a badass name. I've had the Airwolf theme song stuck in my head since I saw the printer.

I can't attest to how Airwolf printers work (though if the makers want us to test head to head on a commercial level versus the Type A Machines, we'll gladly test it for you!), and I know they currently come with a much larger diameter hot end (.5 is their standard with a .35 hot end available sometime in the spring), so it's comparing apples to oranges.

Piper Pillows?! (LaserGnomes are on Society6)

I've finally gotten around to putting my photography and art up on Society6. While I could technically take care of getting prints made, it's a lot easier to outsource it. I don't have to worry about making/obtaining the print, shipping, etc and Society6 can offer products that I can't such as iPhone cases, tote bags, throw pillows and the like.

I mean seriously can you resist a Piper Pillow?
I want to order one for Piper!

I haven't been to the Gnomery in 3 days! It's a bit weird, but I am working "out of the home" on some illustrations for an upcoming project.

I used the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 yesterday to work on one of my pieces and it was AWESOME. It was like a mini Cintiq! We have the 256G model with 8GB of RAM. Um seriously, I was so jealous. It's a tablet that is better than both my lappy (6GB of RAM) or my desky (only a piddly 2GB of RAM)! The ElderGnome managed to get his hands on one and they have been out of stock FOREVER!

We got it to use with the Sense 3D scanner (the Surface Pro 2 has USB onboard) but it's also AMAZING for PhotoShop and Illustrator. There's a bit of adjusting (I'm used to full keyboard and the Wacom Intuos 4) but I really loved the performance. The only problem I ran into was serious arm pain today. The screen isn't as large as my Intuos surface (or any of my sketchbooks), so I was using a lot more fine motor control, which causes my arm and hand pain to flare up.

On the 3D printing front, Justin was insanely excited by the beta release of MatterControl, a new printer controller. I haven't had a chance to see it in action but Justin was super excited when he called me from the shop about it. In reviewing the features, I can see why he's excited.

• It's "plug & print", which he probably isn't super thrilled about but new users will be. 
• SMS and Email notification - That's a pretty big deal. Knowing a print is complete (or not), helps us plan our day a bit more accordingly. Say we go home for the night, it will be great to know if the print is actually done instead of going in and hanging out until it finishes (also great if you need to go out to lunch or run errands). 
• Drag and Drop queuing - Drag and drop always makes things flow a bit better. 
• Design Library - This is pretty sweet. It allows you to organize and store your print files. 
• Advanced Plating - This is pretty exciting. Automatically detect multiple parts within a single design file and then individually manipulate, scale, rotate, and mirror those parts.

Like I said, I haven't seen it in action yet, but it sounds pretty awesome. I think the feature that was most exciting (to Justin, Elijah and possibly Levi) was that you can name your printer(s). That might not seem like much, but when you have 5 printers running, names help instead of COM PORT numbers.

In fact, we're having a naming contest. Suggestions can be made on the LaserGnomes Facebook page.