3d Printing: UFO The Series From 1970

A friend contacted me about a TV show I’d never heard of. Actually he asked about a toy that was the merchandise that goes with the TV show I’d never heard of. Actually he was concerned with an accessory for a toy that was merchandise that goes with a TV show I’d never heard of.

Could I 3d print a piece to go with the toy?

Fuck yeah! I live for problem solving.

Apparently there were flying UFO defense force things that had giant phallic missiles. My friend had the flying thing but not the missile. The perfect challenge for a Curmudgeon like yours truly.

Step 1: Research.

I watched a trailer for the show. What a hoot! The 1970’s were trippy. I have an urge to play an 8-track tape while slurping a Tab soda. You had to be there!

Here’s 80 seconds worth of research. It’s worth a watch.

My observations:

• • At :26 a brief shot of a space cadet’s ass in a polyester uniform. Excellent!
  • At :28 data on tape. I love data on tape!
  • At :34 a teletype with a grammatical error. NOOOOO! Instead of plural UFOs there’s a possessive UFO‘s. THAT’S NOT OK! I didn’t know that the horror of misplaced possessive apostrophes was already afoot in 1970! The rot goes so much deeper than I knew. I weep for mankind!
  • At :35 we find out the setting is in the far advanced 1980’s. They have space flight and UFO battles; they might even have a microwave in the kitchen!
  • At 1:06 we see women with aposematic (purple) hair hard. What’s interesting is they’re hard at work. They’re presumably competent; calling out space coordinates or something. Nice! It wasn’t an HR meeting about feelings. How cool is that? 1970’s space future was more glorious than reality half a century later. By 2020’s it was empirically established that weirdly colored hair is just one nose ring and three tattoos away from a lifestyle which devolves into marching around in the streets bitching about Trump.
  • At 1:13 I see a giant phallic missile. The target of my engineering challenge! Such tactical brilliance! One big ass missile per machine. Three machines in formation with three shots total. It’s a fictional weapon but one designed for maximum expense per use. Glorious!
  • Conclusion: It ends with a UFO getting blown to smithereens. Perfect!

I wish I’d watched this show as a kid!

Step 2: Find a model.

A quick search established that some dude on Thingiverse has already made the missile! I’m linking to it here.

I briefly wanted to add it to my “store”. I can’t imagine there’s six people on earth that need this object but it would amuse me to list massively eclectic shit. Unfortunately, it’s listed under creative commons as BY-NC. It’s a copywrite issue and I’d like to humbly comply.

“BY” means I need to give appropriate credit to the creator. That’s what I’m doing right now. Creator ThingHuxter can be found here. I heartily recommend you throw money, credit, and accolades his way.

“NC” means I can’t sell it commercially, which is a bummer because I was going to tell my friend it would cost $20 and a six pack. Instead I made it for free… ugh!

Anyway, I can’t sell these things so I can’t list them on my “shop” for fun. But you know where the original guy is should you want one.

Step 3: Printing.

The object was perfectly simple to make. I downloaded 3 *.STL files that are the three pieces of a rocket and even the largest was quick to print.

I printed 2 pieces in PLA white. The third piece merited different material.

My friend tells me nose cone of the actual 1970’s object was made of a soft rubber compound. We both assume it’s to avoid someone putting an eye out. (Secretly I’m disappointed. I thought all 1970’s toys were lethal.) I dried my spool of TPU 95A HF and used that to make a nice safe and squishy nose cone. There was some faffing about because TPU doesn’t necessarily run well in an AMS. I bypassed the AMS and ran the dried filament directly from it’s humidity sealed cereal box; which worked well.

Step 4: Going Overboard.

I planned to make one rocket (of the three pieces glued together) and stop there. Send it off and see if it fit the toy before I made any more. However, once I’d gone through he hassle of loading TPU it seemed dumb to print just one nose cone.

I said “fuck it” and printed four. It was a tiny piece. Since I had four nose cones to go with one rocket, I printed three more rockets too.

That should have been the end of it but I decided to go overboard. I had to ship the four rockets. I ripped apart an old iPhone box, took some measurements, and made a simple object (printed in blue) with voids that matched the diameter and length of the three main rocket diameters. (My first and more cooler plan failed. I planned to upload the rocket *.stl’s into Fusion 360, shell externally a few millimeters, and then cut those objects out of a block. That way the voids would be perfect for the rockets. Alas, every time I load an external *.stl into Fusion 360 it gets pissed off at me. Maybe my free license has limitations I don’t know? Or maybe my skills have limitations I’ve yet to overcome. Sooner or later I’ll master it.)

The box isn’t going to win any prizes but it’s kinda’ neat and I’d already dumped way too much labor into a silly little rocket.

That’s that.

A.C.

P.S. As long as I’m uploading photos, here’s my DIY clock in my workshop (which is freezing cold right now). I think it looks pretty good.