When Pokemon Go was all over my Facebook time line I could not yet play it here in Ireland and check what is this craze all about. I saw few YouTube videos on gameplay and decided I will not install it manually on my mobile phone, that it will go away quickly and I should skip this big thing. It was not slowing and finally arrived to my country so I gave it a try. I decided to play only on my way from train station and short trips to shop. It quickly extended those trips. What was previously 5 minutes walk became 30 minutes and I am now level 18. I will not go much further because I am getting bored with catching all the same Pokemons like Pidgeys and Rattatas.
While leveling up in the game I received my shipping of special filaments from Colorfabb from Netherlands. They make many types of filaments for 3d printing, among them 3 types of metal filled plastics called BrassFill
, CopperFill
, BronzeFill
. I wanted to test them on something small so I found this pokemon medallion on thingiverse. It is made of 3 colors just like my metal filled plastics. I printed them quickly, sanded and polished with metal wool. I was very happy with the results and decided to try another version and test patina. I looked for recipes online how to patinate brass, some people use vinegar or much more dangerous chemicals. I tested all household materials I had at home and tomato feed worked the best to give me blue patina and old weathered look of the necklace.
I decided to go further and make metal version of the pokeball. You can find few suitable designs on thingiverse.com . I went with 80% scaled down version of Pokeball (with button-release lid). It had built in hinge and locking mechanism, I thought it will be good feature. It was mistake, the thin sections of the locking mechanism was too weak and broke quickly and I replaced the printed hinge with smaller but stronger brass hinge. It required manual work but ended as better solution. If I will repeat this project in future when Colorfabb release it’s new Steelfill plastic later this summer, I will design my own parts of Pokeball.
I finished it inside with black felt and this way I have another model to my online collection, pokemon ball engagement ring box.
