Speaker 1: Okay, let's kick things off. We have a really interesting
Speaker 1: source for our deep dive today. It's the book three
Speaker 1: D Printing Blueprints by Joe Larsen, and our mission really
Speaker 1: is to get into the heart of well designing stuff
Speaker 1: for this pretty exciting world of home three D printing.
Speaker 2: It is exciting, you.
Speaker 1: Know, having a three D printer just sitting there. It's
Speaker 1: cool definitely. But the real magic, I think, the thing
Speaker 1: that plugs you into that whole New Industrial Age idea
Speaker 1: the book mentions, is designing the objects yourself, taking your
Speaker 1: own ideas, you know, maybe just sketches or concepts, and
Speaker 1: actually making them real physical things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, turning bits into atoms basically exactly.
Speaker 1: And the really great starting point of this book, which
Speaker 1: is key for you listening, is that it argues you
Speaker 1: don't need to be some kind of amazing artist or
Speaker 1: a CAD expert to start. If you can handle spatial
Speaker 1: puzzles like Tetris maybe, or even just you know, play
Speaker 1: pictionary and visualized shapes, or if you messed around with
Speaker 1: modeling clay, yeah, you kind of have the basics. Just
Speaker 1: need a computer really and some creativity and.
Speaker 2: The shift you mentioned bringing fabrication from goog factories down
Speaker 2: to the desktop scale. It's genuinely transformative. It really is
Speaker 2: a new kind of accessibility for manufacturing. Yeah, but you
Speaker 2: hit the nail on the head. The possibilities feel endless.
Speaker 2: But these home printers, especially the FtM type of the
Speaker 2: book mostly talks about they build layer by layer, and
Speaker 2: that process has real physical limits. You can't just dream
Speaker 2: up anything and expect it to print perfectly. Careful design
Speaker 2: is just well essential.
Speaker 1: So what tools are we talking about?
Speaker 2: Well, the book focus is mainly on Blender, which is
Speaker 2: a great choice. Honestly, it's powerful, it's free, open source,
Speaker 2: it runs everywhere right, runs everyone, Windows, Mac, Linux now.
Speaker 2: Blenders for the modeling part, but the source also points
Speaker 2: out you need other bits like slicer software. The slicer Yeah,
Speaker 2: things like kiraprusa slicer, maybe even the older replicator g
Speaker 2: forker box. That software turns your three D model into
Speaker 2: actual instructions. The printer understands line by line, layer by layer.
Speaker 1: Got it?
Speaker 2: And of course, so it's like thingaverse get mentioned too.
Speaker 2: Super useful for finding models, sure, but eventually for sharing
Speaker 2: your own designs once.
Speaker 1: You get going, and the book's approach to teaching this.
Speaker 1: It sounds very practical.
Speaker 2: Very it uses these blueprints right guided projects. Essentially, you
Speaker 2: start with something simple and each project introduces a few
Speaker 2: new Blender tools or.
Speaker 1: Techniques, so you build skills gradually.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's not just theory. It's focused on learning by doing,
Speaker 2: building up that muscle memory for how the tools work,
Speaker 2: how to think about shapes in three D space.
Speaker 1: Okay, so doing, not just reading precisely.
Speaker 2: And the very first hurdle it tackles head on are
Speaker 2: those basic design rules, the ones dictated by the physics
Speaker 2: of laying down melted plastic. And the absolute number one
Speaker 2: enemy it's well unsupported plastic trying to print out into thin.
Speaker 1: Air, right, the infamous spitting monster.
Speaker 2: Getting monster or the bird's nest. Yeah, if there's nothing
Speaker 2: holding up a section of plastic as it cools, it
Speaker 2: just droops or strings everywhere, total failure. So supports then,
Speaker 2: so supports. Yes, you can print temporary structures. Some of
Speaker 2: you just break away. Others might dissolve in water or something,
Speaker 2: but you know, they leave little mark. Sometimes they use
Speaker 2: up filament, which is waste, and removing them can be
Speaker 2: a bit messier fiddly.
Speaker 1: Okay, So ideally.
Speaker 2: Ideally, and this is what good design really pushes for.
Speaker 2: You try to design your model so it doesn't need supports,
Speaker 2: or at least minimizes them.
Speaker 1: Ah, So design around the limitation.
Speaker 2: Exactly, which brings us to some key ideas for supportless printing.
Speaker 2: Angles are huge angles, Yeah, outward slopes or overhangs. They
Speaker 2: need to be gradual. The rule of thumb is usually
Speaker 2: keep it at forty five degrees or less from the vertical.
Speaker 2: That's generally safe.
Speaker 1: Okay, forty five degrees.
Speaker 2: Think simple shapes. A capital H print's fine, right, each
Speaker 2: lighter rests on the one below.
Speaker 1: It makes sense.
Speaker 2: But a capital T that horizontal top bars picking out
Speaker 2: with nothing underneath that needs support or you need to
Speaker 2: redesign it somehow, maybe at a champer or curve underneath.
Speaker 1: So sharp overhangs are bad.
Speaker 2: Very tricky without supports. Now, some fancier printers have dual extruders,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe for printing supports in a different material
Speaker 2: or doing multiple colors, right, but the book really focuses
Speaker 2: on single extruder designs. That's what most people have at home.
Speaker 1: Okay, what about printing across gaps like the bar in.
Speaker 2: The h ah, Yes, bridging, that's what that's called. Where
Speaker 2: the printer stretches a line of plastic between two supported points.
Speaker 1: Can printers actually do that?
Speaker 2: They can? Yeah, yeah, but it depends heavily on the printer,
Speaker 2: the material, The setting's cooling is really important. Your printer
Speaker 2: needs to be well calibrated. The key is keeping bridges
Speaker 2: relatively short and simple, like that bar in the h
Speaker 2: long Complex bridges are much more likely to fail or sag.
Speaker 1: Okay, got it, So supports angles bridging. These are the
Speaker 1: fundamental physity that you're designed against.
Speaker 2: Or maybe designing with exactly. You have to respect the process,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: So for this deep dive drawing from Joe Larsen's Blueprints approach,
Speaker 1: our mission seems pretty clear. First understand these basic design principles,
Speaker 1: the why.
Speaker 2: Behind them yep, the physics of printing, and then walk.
Speaker 1: Through how the book uses its projects to teach the
Speaker 1: actual how, the different modeling techniques, the blender tools you
Speaker 1: use for different kinds of objects solving different design problems.
Speaker 2: Sounds like a plan seeing how you go from a
Speaker 2: simple idea to a printable file.
Speaker 1: Okay, then let's dive into those blueprints and follow that
Speaker 1: design journey. Where does it start? Typically, Well, like.
Speaker 2: We said, it emphasizes learning by doing, So those initial
Speaker 2: blueprints are all about just getting your feet wet and blender.
Speaker 2: Basic navigation and manipulation.
Speaker 1: Like moving around the three D space.
Speaker 2: Exactly, adding primitive shapes, cubes, cylinders, fheares, you know, the
Speaker 2: building blocks. Then learning to orbit, the view pan, zoom
Speaker 2: in and out, absolutely fundamentally.
Speaker 1: Selecting thing and selecting things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, using simple tools like the box select or the
Speaker 2: circle select to just choose which object, or later which
Speaker 2: part of an object you want to actually work on.
Speaker 2: It's the groundwork before you start really changing shapes.
Speaker 1: Okay, basics first, Then you need to actually do something
Speaker 1: with those shapes once you select them.
Speaker 2: Right, So, the book quickly moves into the basic transformations
Speaker 2: we mentioned them, grab, rotate, scale.
Speaker 1: Moving, turning, resizing.
Speaker 2: These become like breathing as you start blocking out the
Speaker 2: main forms of whatever you're designing. But pretty soon just
Speaker 2: moving whole objects around isn't enough. You need to change
Speaker 2: the object's actual geometry. Get inside the shape, get inside
Speaker 2: the shape. That's where edit mode comes in and tools
Speaker 2: like extrude are introduced. Early, super powerful extrude. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: select a face like the side of a cube, and
Speaker 2: you pull it outwards. It creates new geometry connected to
Speaker 2: the old. Yeah, like pulling the handle shape right out
Speaker 2: of the side of the mini mug project in the book.
Speaker 1: Ah okay, so adding material conceptually.
Speaker 2: Kind of or extending existing geometry. Loop cut is another
Speaker 2: vital one shown early. It lets you slice new edge
Speaker 2: loops around your model.
Speaker 1: Why would you do that?
Speaker 2: It gives you more vertices, more edges, more faces to
Speaker 2: work with, more control points for refining the shape or
Speaker 2: maybe setting up edges that you plan to extrude later.
Speaker 2: More detail basically right right.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're building up the detail bit by bit,
Speaker 1: almost like the printer itself does.
Speaker 2: That's a great analogy actually, And as you get more
Speaker 2: comfortable with those fundamental edits, the book starts introducing modifiers.
Speaker 1: Modifiers sounds powerful.
Speaker 2: They are. They're like automated ocerations you apply to your object,
Speaker 2: but they're non destructive, usually meaning you can tweet them
Speaker 2: or turn them off later.
Speaker 1: Okay. Examples.
Speaker 2: The boolean modifier is a real workhorse. It gets used
Speaker 2: a lot. Think of it like virtual cutting or welding.
Speaker 1: Cutting and welding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can use one object shape to cut a
Speaker 2: hole right through another one, or you can fuse two
Speaker 2: separate objects together into one single seamless mesh.
Speaker 1: Oh oh wow, Okay, I can see how that would
Speaker 1: be useful.
Speaker 2: Absolutely essential for creating parts that need to fit together,
Speaker 2: like making housings or interlocking pieces. It shows up in
Speaker 2: the Robot project, the D six spinner, even for cleaning
Speaker 2: up messy geometry sometimes.
Speaker 1: Mm any other key modifiers Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: Multi resolution is another good one. It's great for smoothing
Speaker 2: things out or adding detail to organic shapes.
Speaker 1: Like characters or sculptures exactly.
Speaker 2: Instead of manually adding millions of tiny polygons, you can
Speaker 2: use multi resolution to subdivide the mesh smoothly and then
Speaker 2: maybe sculpt finer details on top. It makes creating smoother,
Speaker 2: more natural forms much easier. You see it used on
Speaker 2: the Teddy Bear, but also just for smoothing parts of
Speaker 2: the Mini Mug.
Speaker 1: So modifiers handle complex stuff, will give you higher level controls.
Speaker 2: Pretty much, and they can build complex geometry from really
Speaker 2: simple starting points too. Like the screw modifier screw like threads,
Speaker 2: it can do threads more generally. It takes a two
Speaker 2: D profile line just a flat shape and spins it
Speaker 2: around an axis lathe you can make vases, bottles, anything
Speaker 2: radially symmetrical.
Speaker 1: Yeah okay.
Speaker 2: Combine that with something like the solidify modifier, which just
Speaker 2: adds thickness to a flat surface, and you can create
Speaker 2: surprisingly complex hollow printable objects starting from just a simple line.
Speaker 2: The face Illusion Base project is a perfect example of
Speaker 2: that technique. That sounds efficient, it off, it is, and
Speaker 2: it can help ensure the final object is manifold or
Speaker 2: water tight, which is super important for the slicer software.
Speaker 1: Right, water tight that came up with supports. You also
Speaker 1: mentioned accuracy. How does the book handle making things you know,
Speaker 1: the right size, especially for functional parts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's crucial. Blender isn't like traditional CAD, which is
Speaker 2: built purely for engineering precision from the ground up, but
Speaker 2: the book absolutely shows how you can work accurately. How
Speaker 2: so it introduces using real world measurements like with digital calibers.
Speaker 2: Measure the thing you want to fit, then model to
Speaker 2: those dimensions. Okay, there's even neat trick using grid paper,
Speaker 2: lay it flat, take a phot import that image into
Speaker 2: Blender as a reference plane. Oh clever, and then model
Speaker 2: on top of it. Using the grid for scale, Plus
Speaker 2: you learn to use Blender's own measurement tools and grid
Speaker 2: snapping features. Projects like the SD card holder ring really
Speaker 2: drive home why you need to design specific dimensions. It
Speaker 2: often suggests setting blenders units to millimeters to keep things straightforward.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. Millimeters are pretty standard for printing, yep.
Speaker 2: Then there's a whole different side of modeling organic shapes,
Speaker 2: not hard edges and flat surfaces, but curves characters like.
Speaker 1: The Teddy Bear you mentioned it exactly that.
Speaker 2: Uses a different toolkit. The book introduces the skin modifier first,
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool. You make a simple wireframe skeleton
Speaker 2: like a stick figure, and the skin modifier instantly adds
Speaker 2: volume around it, making a basic mesh body really fast
Speaker 2: for blocking out characters or creatures. Then if you want
Speaker 2: to pose it, you can get into Armature's actual posable
Speaker 2: skeletons inside the mesh and weight painting to control how
Speaker 2: the mesh deforms when you move the bones, so.
Speaker 1: You can pose it before you print it.
Speaker 2: Right, And if we're adding all the soft details, the
Speaker 2: fur texture, refining the shape, that's where sculpting tools come in.
Speaker 2: It's like working with digital clay. You push, pull, smooth
Speaker 2: pinch the match directly very intuitive for organic forms. The
Speaker 2: Teddy Bear project walks through that whole process.
Speaker 1: Okay, so different tools for different jobs, geometric versus organic.
Speaker 1: What about things that need to work mechanically, multiple parts?
Speaker 2: Good question definitely covers that the Modular Robot toy blueprint
Speaker 2: is a prime example. It's all about designing separate parts
Speaker 2: that are meant to connect together, designing your own custom
Speaker 2: pegs and sockets, basically and crucially thinking about tolerances.
Speaker 1: Tolerances meaning gaps.
Speaker 2: Exactly, leaving a tiny gap maybe like zero point two
Speaker 2: millimeters between parts that are supposed to fit together, so
Speaker 2: they actually do fit. Not too tight, not too loose.
Speaker 2: That's vital for functional prints.
Speaker 1: Right, Plastic isn't perfectly precise, It isn't.
Speaker 2: The D six Spinder project goes even further into mechanical design,
Speaker 2: using Blender add ons to generate things like gears and
Speaker 2: thinking about how the parts will interact when printed. It
Speaker 2: also shows how to clean up geometry issues that sometimes
Speaker 2: come from those add ons, like merging duplicate vertices to
Speaker 2: make sure the final model is solid.
Speaker 1: Okay, tolerances connectors even using add ons, and.
Speaker 2: One really important takeaway I think is that the design
Speaker 2: process doesn't actually stop when you export the three D
Speaker 2: model file. It doesn't. No, the book makes a point
Speaker 2: that your design choices continue right into the slicer software.
Speaker 1: How so you mean like print speed or temperature, those two.
Speaker 2: But also things that directly affect the object's properties like
Speaker 2: infill the internal support structure. You can change the pattern
Speaker 2: or density. You can even turn off the top and
Speaker 2: bottom solid layers entirely.
Speaker 1: Why would you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, the stretchy braiselet blueprint is a perfect example. By
Speaker 2: using a specific low density infill pattern and maybe no
Speaker 2: top bottom layers, the resulting print becomes flexible, almost like fabric.
Speaker 2: So you're using the slicer settings as a design tool
Speaker 2: to get a specific physical property.
Speaker 1: Uh that's thinking outside the box or inside the slicer
Speaker 1: I guess yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And finally, a really practical, vital skill the book
Speaker 2: teaches is how to fix models.
Speaker 1: Fix broken prints.
Speaker 2: No, fix broken digital models, maybe something you downloaded from
Speaker 2: online that wasn't actually designed well for three D printing.
Speaker 1: H models with errors exactly.
Speaker 2: It shows you how to spot and repair common problems
Speaker 2: holes in the mesh surface.
Speaker 1: Non manifold geomesh non manial.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's where the geometry doesn't make sense physically, like
Speaker 2: an edge connected to three faces, or an internal face
Speaker 2: dividing the volume. Basically edges or vertices that break the
Speaker 2: rule of having a clear inside and outside and also
Speaker 2: flipped normals where a surface is facing inwards instead of outwards.
Speaker 1: Okay, so problems that confuse the slicer.
Speaker 2: Precisely, a three D print needs a perfectly closed, water
Speaker 2: tight manifold mesh. The book gives you Blender tools and
Speaker 2: techniques to identify those errors and fix them, reclculating normals,
Speaker 2: merging vertices, patching holes, essential stuff.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, that really covers a huge range then, from
Speaker 1: just adding a cube all the way through sculpting mechanical parts,
Speaker 1: fixing bad models, even using the slicer creatively.
Speaker 2: It absolutely does. It really underscores that designing for print
Speaker 2: uses a whole spectrum of tools and techniques within Blender.
Speaker 2: You pick the wide approach based on what you're trying
Speaker 2: to make.
Speaker 1: And I think what this deep dive really drawing from
Speaker 1: Larsen's whole approach in the book Hammer's Home, is that
Speaker 1: core idea learning to design your own stuff. That's probably
Speaker 1: the best way to really unlock what these home three
Speaker 1: D printers can do today.
Speaker 2: I completely agree.
Speaker 1: It's about closing that loop, isn't it Taking the idea
Speaker 1: from your head or screen and making it into a
Speaker 1: real thing you can pick up and use.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and the practical potential that unlocks is just immense.
Speaker 2: I mean, think about it. A plastic part breaks on
Speaker 2: some appliance. Instead of junking the whole thing, yeah, you
Speaker 2: can measure the broken bit, maybe use that grid paper
Speaker 2: trick to get the shape right, model or replacement and
Speaker 2: print it instant repair.
Speaker 1: Like the drawer guide example in the.
Speaker 2: Book, exactly like that. Or you invent completely new gadgets
Speaker 2: making you unique art pieces, customize toys for your kids,
Speaker 2: build those modular robot parts that can be mixed and matched.
Speaker 2: The possibilities really open up.
Speaker 1: Okay, So final thought, Then, with this power, this ability
Speaker 1: to measure the world around you, model it digitally and
Speaker 1: then actually print it back into physical reality now kind
Speaker 1: of accessible to anyone. How does that change the way
Speaker 1: you look at every day objects or problems, or maybe
Speaker 1: put another way for you listening, what's the first idea
Speaker 1: that's currently just living inside your computer, that you would
Speaker 1: want to hold in your hand,