Brunnian and Marble Pendants

Hi all,

I received my very first Stanless Steel prints. And I have to say that I am very happy with the results.
These two models are wireframed and the diameter of the thread is 2 mm.

The Brunnian Pendant is a smaller version of the Brunnian Circles. Even though the diameter is 2 mm, the clearance between the thread is still 1 mm as for the original version, because I was afraid the thread would be fused (so it is not exactly a scaled down version). As a consequence the circles are a bit loose, but the result is really convincing. In particular, you do not need any extra ring to attach the pendant to a necklace: thanks to the shape of the circles, it is very easy.


Note that the color is not as reddish as in the pictures.
The marble pendant is the exact replica of the top part of the variation 2 of my Marble Pendant, with the little ring positionned at 45°.


I choose this design among all the Marble Pendant because it was the most flexible one in WSF.
Unfortunately, in Stainless Steel it is nearly not flexible at all, and although I choose my smallest marble, I had a lot of difficulties to insert it (and even more to extract it back ).
But once again, when I look at the final result, I am very satisfied.

As a consequence, I would like to make new trials with these designs : a thread diameter of 1mm for the Marble Pendant to make it more flexible, and only 0.5mm clearance for the Brunnian Pendant to make it less loose (and perhaps also a diameter of 1 mm?).
What is your opinion ?

Hopefully Shapeways will allow it to be 1mm thick in stainless. What if you made it so it would just clear, put the marble in the freezer to shrink it, or the pendent in the oven to expand it, assemble and let them cool/heat back to room temperature.

The freezer/oven trick can work, but I would like the marble to be easily exchanged by the customer...
I will try with 1 mm.
Another solution (that can be combined with the previous one) is have the opening being bigger (and the threads closer).
To make it clear, in the following image, the idea would be to use the middle thread only instead of the outer thread only:

I like your work with this, and wish you luck with figuring it out. I think you'll have an issue with "easy to remove" and "holding together under it's own weight"... Which gives me an idea, I'll draw it up and post a pic.

Ok, here's my idea...



To assemble/disassemble you lift, and turn. all held together by the weight below.

You are right: it is difficult to find a compromise between "easy to remove" and "not easy to lose"
I looked at your solution and that's funny: I was thinking about doing a belt buckle in Stainless Steel, and my problem was to find out how to do a "spring" or at least a closing mechanism without relying on the flexibility of the material. And one of the ideas that comed to my mind was to use the gravity to make a kind of locking system (another solution I will explore will be to mix and internal WSF mechanism with a Stainless Steel shell).
In your design, gravity is also insuring the cohesion of the different parts.
Anyways, I will stop playing with the marbles for some time (I have a lot of other project in mind).
So feel free to give it a try if you wish!

By the way, a video of these 2 Stainless Steel prints is now available here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DKauudKv78

I did a new version of the Brunnian Pendant with a smaller clearance (0.5 mm instead of 1 mm).
I printed them in Transparent Detail and Stainless Steel. Unfortunately, the Stainless Steel version get fused. The Transparent Detail one instead is working perfectly:


See also a small video on Youtube.