Phew! Just about made it.
I had the bright idea to buy myself one of those new-fangled 3D printers the other week or so. When I first got it, I stored it, temporarily, in the Bathroom for safe-keeping until I could find a more permanent home for it, which I did a couple of days later and I moved it down to the Cellar.
Now, as you are aware, me and technology don’t exactly go hand in hand. I can honestly say that I don’t know my acrylonitrile butadiene styrene from my endstop switches, but I’m not going to let anything like that stop me.
The 3D printer I bought was a kit that one makes at home. Like flat-pack furniture; all of the required parts are there, and a starter pack that contained just enough ABS nuggets (ABS is the ‘plastic’ that is the end product, apparently… the pack said) to get me started. I’m sure I had a few parts missing, as what was on the diagram wasn’t in the plastic bag, and some items were different colours.
Anyhow, I persevered, and knocked up my 3D printer in no time. It looked quite similar to what was in the instruction manual, with a few wires missing here and a different coloured cable there, but all in all it looked OK.
I plugged it in, switched it on, and it buzzed, clicked and whirred into life.
I decided that I would make a small model of yours truly, and set the device to scan me, which it did perfectly. Well, it appeared to, anyhow. I was stood on a metal plate, and bathed in a gentle blue light as the plate rotated. The printer hummed as it took its own mental notes of my vital statistics as it scanned me, and then started to chug and click alternatively as it began to weave extremely fine gossamer threads which seemed to gain a life of their own as they emanated outwards from the device.
I noticed in the corner that I’d forgotten to put the cover on, so what happened next can only be blamed on me and not the printer.
The threads spread outwards from the printer and towards the plate. The plate I was on. The plate I was whizzing around on at a gentle pace, and couldn’t get off until it had stopped turning, otherwise the printing would fail, and I would have had to reset the printer.
So I was stuck.
The threads wrapped themselves around me, and worked upwards, gradually covering my whole body like some sort of ancient Egyptian Mummy.
I managed to keep a breathing hole in the plastic by sticking my tongue out every time I’d rotated away from the printer, which pushed the setting plastic polymer away from me.
The plate stopped spinning. The machine beeped. The printing was done.
That was last week.
I’ve been on that plate since then, in case you’ve wondered why I haven’t been on the blog.
It was quite comfortable, as the set plastic was a support when I slept, but when I was awake I’d try my hardest to push out, and break myself free.
I managed that this afternoon when, after one final hefty shove, the plastic shattered.
I desperately needed the loo, so dashed back up to the Mansion’s bathroom, and then returned to the 3D printer.
It appears the threads that got me should have been worked back into the machine, and the cover I’d forgotten to put on would have seen to that. The printer had started to replicate me, however, although some of the proportions were slightly wrong.
It had started from the top of my head down, and had reached just below my nose before it ran out of the ABS – obviously, there would have been plenty if the threads had reached their correct destination.
So, I have another Selfie, a 3D one this time, which both looks like me and doesn’t in equal measure. You can see a photo of it up there.
I may not use the printer again… but really I should have thought harder when I bought it from the car boot sale, but I couldn’t resist. That’s me, you see, impetuous.
Incidentally, Made It! also refers to one other thing. Back in 2010 I started this blog on May 13th. I’m still here, five years later. I almost missed today’s post due to circumstances absolutely beyond my control, but it just goes to show we really can do anything when we put our minds to it!
It’s good to be back. And it’s good to still be here.
And here’s to the next five years!
Cheers!
The Mansionic Perspective 
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