DIY REIMAGINED
3D printing is a cheap and surprisingly simple DIY way of making new parts for old boats, says Phil Sampson
The February 2021 edition of MBY carried a fascinating article on a 3D-printed boat, the outcome of which was MAMBO – a futuristic craft the hull of which bore a passing resemblance to Stingray, the iconic vessel piloted by my first maritime hero, superstar puppet Troy Tempest.
While commercial visions such as MAMBO (and indeed Stingray) may still be some way off from becoming an everyday reality, I’ve discovered there’s no reason why us amateurs can’t take advantage of 3D printing technology today to remanufacture obsolete parts and spruce up our boats with objects of desire that were simply never made in the first place. All it takes is around £250 for a 3D printer, some very basic design skills and a bit of imagination.
I was introduced to 3D printing by Paul, our local marine-electrics specialist and go-to techno-geek, who described the joys of designing and making your own stuff. Then, to my shock, he cajoled my wife into buying me a machine. Being blessed with ten thumbs and a decidedly 2D brain, I stared at the gift in horror.
Despite arriving part-built up and requiring final assembly, to my great surprise I soon had the beast whirring, clicking and buzzing away contentedly. But what to do with it? I had always had something of a mental block with the term 3D printing, as for me the word ‘printing’ conjures up images of ink being splashed onto paper. So it took me a while to get my head round the fact that a 3D printer does nothing of the sort – I now find it far better to think of it as a manufacturing tool which produces solid, and robust, objects. And that makes it extremely useful.
ANOTHER DIMENSION
The printer itself is actually a very simple piece of kit which squirts out layers of molten ‘filament’ with immense accuracy to make up your chosen design. Three motors control the print head; one for the X and Y horizontal axes and one for the vertical Z axis. That’s all there is to it. The clever bit is what’s on the card – an image of a 3D object which has been sliced into a bazillion micro-thin layers, each of which the printer lays down on top of each other until the job is complete.
For me, designing things to print was the next obstacle to overcome. But, as usual, the internet has the solution with Tinkercad. This site enables you to realise complex designs with ease. The key is to think of objects as a mixture of shapes, each of which you stick together to form your design, which is then outputted by your printer.
It didn’t take long for me to realise this offered myriad opportunities for my boat.
Being 2003 vintage, there are parts I just cannot get any more, such as a replacement grille for the distorted one above our microwave, presumably the result of a previous owner’s pizza gone wrong. But now I have one, and it looks and fits great. And if my pizza goes up in smoke too, I’ll just make another. I also now have sun covers for my Icom radio and Garmin Grid 20, which for some reason the manufacturers themselves do not offer.
While I may be restricted by the size my entrylevel printer can handle (220 x 220 x 250mm) the possibilities are endless. As every owner knows, all sorts of irreplaceable objects can break or fall off our boats. Now there’s an answer. And if the manufacturer never thought to make that item, well, that’s no problem either.