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Need Help Designing Fire Piston Cylinder and Cap
Hello everyone,
I am fairly new to the carvewright community and am currently limited to using the basic software. I need help creating a fire piston. Basically It is a 2 piece item 1 being the cylinder and 1 being the piston. I plan on using dowel rods for the piston so basically I need help designing the cylinder and maybe a cap that would allow a person to hold the piston and compress it without jamming a dowel rod into their palm. These items are for intended for long term survival in a wilderness setting and have been traditionally only made from wood. I have pretty much figured that the cylinder will have to be a 2 piece carve that is double sided however the basic software doesn't allow me to create the parts. The cylinder would have a 3/8" id and a 7/8" to 1" od. If I were to choose the shape of the cylinder I would make the od in the form of a hexagon so that the glue lines didn't show up and it would simply have a hole on the interior of 3/8" that would go almost to the bottom of the cylinder. So it would go maybe all but half inch of a 5" cylinder and would have a cap the thickness of the board and the same shape of the cylinder that I could glue the piston into so that I could use my palm to compress the piston into the cylinder. If anyone would be willing to help me design this project I would be willing to pay a modest amount for the design time.
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Step 1: Making patterns from height maps
To begin, we're going to need a couple of patterns: one for the inner cylindrical bore, and one for the external hexagon shape.
All versions of Designer, including Basic, allow us to import a height map and make that into a pattern. What is a height map? A height map is a 2D graphic grayscale image, where black = highest and white = lowest. (I was a presenter at the 2015 Carvewright Conference, so I am borrowing a couple of slides from my presentation.) Here is an illustration of a height map on the left, and the resulting pattern on the right:
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It's noteworthy to point out that a height map is not a photo, and vice versa, although you may see some resemblance:
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We can use various drawing programs, including free ones, to draw height maps in 2D and convert them to 3D patterns. The 2D drawings will not make a lot of sense as pictures, but they will as height maps. Conversely, pictures that make sense to the eye typically do not make for good 3D carvings, as you can see by the picture of the hydrant and the resulting pattern.
I'm not going to go into any detail on how to make a 2D height map maps using drawing programs. There are numerous drawing programs and all have their own learning curve. I will provide some simple geometric shape height maps that we need for this project.