Category Archives: Woodworking

Darth Vader Tap Handle

(NO SPOILERS HERE, DON’T WORRY!!)

In honor of the long awaited release of Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens I’m showcasing my Darth Vader Tap Handle.

 Difficulty: level_5

Due to the investment in a 3D printer and the amount of time it takes to get one dialed in and making parts, this one gets a high difficulty rating.

You also must posses some CAD design skills to generate the required files to send to the 3D printer.

Time Required:

This one was fairly easy, but printing time was about 6 hours total.

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Required:

  • Existing tap handle
  • Tap handle topper (In my case the Darth Vader bust)
  • 1/4″ wooden dowel rod
    • About a 1 to 1.5″ length
  • Glue
    • Super glue is best
    • It works well with the ABS plastic and the wood
  • 3D printer

3D Printer

Ever since I first saw my first rapid prototyping machine in college and then to a greater extent, seeing that this technology was nearly affordable for a DIY person like me, I’ve had a child-like fascination with these awesome machines.  It may sound goofy, but I’ve got the same level of amazement that I did when my Dad bought our first computer in the early ’80s and I was able to type my name and have it appear on our television.

I got the Flashforge Creator and I am very happy with it.  It had the right balance of cost, dual-extruders, reliability, non-proprietary filament and has required me to do a little bit of tinkering that has allowed me to better understand the capabilities 3D printers.

Great Fermentations

Celebrate by brewing the Milleniale Falcon beer kit from Great Fermentations.  Today only (December 18th, 2015) is a special 38% off deal. No promo code needed for the deal; just add the kits to your cart and go! Click the link below to see the list of eligible light and dark side beer kits!

6_deal_days_day4_cat

Process

It is really simple, once you have your handle and the topper printed.  I just used a 1/4″ dowel rod to attach the topper to the tap handle.  Drill a 1/4″ pilot hole in the top of the tap handle.

023-Vader Dunkel Side 3DP Front

Text creation for tap handle

At the time, I couldn’t find a font that looked similar to the Star Wars font, nor could I find a font generator, but now there are a few out there.  Here is one for example:

Font Meme

Tap Handle Creation

Just follow my guide for Super Easy Tap Handles

Darth Vader Bust

If you have a 3D printer and want to print one yourself, go to Thingiverse to download the STL files and build your own.

Darth Vader Tap Handle Topper on Thingiverse

Don’t have a Thingiverse account?

If you don’t have a Thingiverse account or have no interest in creating one, you can download the CAD files by subscribing using the form below:
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

By clicking on the download, you agree to the terms of this license and to be added to the awesome fermware.com subscriber list. Don’t worry, you won’t receive a bunch of trub in your inbox.
[lab_subscriber_download_form download_id=26]

 

023-Vader Dunkel Side 3DP Side

Homer Hopper Part 7 – CAD Files

Homer Hopper Part 7 – CAD Files

This is part 7 in the series documenting how to create your own Homer Hopper.  If you haven’t seen the introduction yet, please check it out.  In this post, I’ll explain what to do with the CAD files.

Difficulty: level_1

Time Required:

One morning or afternoon (For the entire project)

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CAD files & Templates:

Thanks for your interest in this project!

All files have a 2″x2″ square on the print so that when you print out on paper, you can measure to make sure your printer was printing to scale and at the correct aspect ratio.

The intention in making these files downloadable and free is for people to make this themselves or modify/improve the design to suit them.

Download the CAD files & Templates by subscribing:

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

By clicking on the download, you agree to the terms of this license and to be added to the awesome fermware.com subscriber list. Don’t worry, you won’t receive a bunch of trub in your inbox.

[purchase_link id=”2103″ style=”button” color=”green” text=”Download Homer Hopper CAD Templates”]

If you are interested in this for commercial purposes (i.e. you want to make money on my effort), I’m flattered, but please contact me first.

Missed a post?

Introduction
Part 2: Bucket Modifications
Part 3: Wooden Base
Part 4: Mill Box
Part 5: Funnel Panels
Part 6: Final Assembly
Part 7: CAD Drawings (This post)

Mein Bierwagen in July/August BYO

Ok, now for the third time this year, I’m honored to have one of my DIY’s featured in another great brewing publication.  Only this time, it’s a real article authored by yours truly.  It’s in the 2015 July/August BYO!

It is a full write up of Mein Bierwagen.

There was even an additional Reader Project feature of my DIY tap handles.

BYO Tap Handles

I really hope to see some variations of this for the 2015 Oktoberfest parties.

I’ll be brewing for Strausstoberfest in a few weeks!

Prost!

Difficulty: level_3

BYO also has been kind enough to allow me to post the article on my website, so just read my section of the article, then go over to BYO and start a subscription!

Download the article by subscribing:

By clicking on the download, you agree to the terms of the copyright of BYO Magazine and to be added to the awesome fermware.com subscriber list. Don’t worry, you won’t receive a bunch of trub in your inbox.

[purchase_link id=”2098″ style=”button” color=”green” text=”Download BYO Build a Bierwagen”]