I’ve got the proof over what it is!
I’d say group engineering project to make a sphere out of cast metal parts. The inconsistent parts that you point out in the interior reaffirms this theory for me; some groups and individuals out performed the rest, while some just settled for getting by. Also, the mismatched and misaligned shape of the top where it comes together just screams engineering students attempting to finish the project on time. Art students would have take a grinder to to it to at make it more presentable. Engineering students (and there teachers) would have considered that cheating.
My take is that it’s an art-for-art’s-sake piece, probably cast by one artist or team, and the area of rounded-back castings look like they were early discards they decided to use anyway rather than making another 50 perfect castings. That’s why they are grouped rather than distributed - IMVVHO.
As for the crappy fit of the top pieces, I think they’re just bent from manhandling the work around and into the scrapyard.
I agree - it looks like the inner faces of the segments are the tops of the castings (many of them have two little nibs on them that are probably where the sprues attached) - and the rounded corners could easily be shrinkage during initial cooling, or just incomplete filling of the moulds, but I imagine the inside of this object was never intended to be on display anyway.
Possibly, but it does look like they were never actually fixed together, which I think is the single strongest argument for this thing not ever having a practical purpose.
Then they shouldn’t have left ports big enough to poke my lens through, bwah-ha-ha-haaaaa!
I certainly agree that the pieces that are rounded off on the inside are due to a lack of skill with the casting process. And once we accept lack of skill in one aspect (which was nonetheless allowed into the final project), I think lack of skill is also probably the simplest explanation for the messy pole.
Great thread. I enjoyed the level of speculation. The latest pictures clinched it for me. The imperfect fit at the top, the inside surface and the lack of any valve or wiring hardware in pic 6 made me an art believer.
It could be art, because like a lot of art, I don’t get it.
But seems more like an experiment in using castings of limited size, or possibly printed parts using sintered media, or maybe the molds were printed. It does resemble things I’ve seen at sewage treatment facilities, but not that large, and those were made of cast iron.
Just curious, what were the things at sewage treatment facilities doing?
Evidence is that it’s been there at least 3-4 years and probably 6 or more. That would seem to predate all but the very earliest examples of 3-D printing.
I could buy the notion that it’s as much about small casting precision and techniques as anything else. When I have to learn a new process, I always try to do it with something potentially useful or at least pretty rather than yet another equivalent of a “Hello, world” production.
It was part of a pumping system. That’s all I can tell you. I saw it because a cast piece was broken and I went with a machinist to pick up the piece so he make a replacement part.
3D printing has been around for a long time. Strong sintered materials are fairly new, but it may have been used to make the molds for casting, and there’s plenty of technology that could have done that. In a similar manner it might not have been printing, but instead pieces cut with a CNC mill, or the molds made that way. I don’t think there’s any reason to construct it out of small pieces like that except for a size limitation on the fabrication process. Unless it’s art, and then it doesn’t need a reason.
It’s a nitrogen press.
Now I’m wondering about two things:
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how does the length of this thread - a serious series of speculations and hypotheses - stack up against others of similar ilk? (i.e. ruling out opinion or polling threads). Seems pretty substantial.
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What is “art for art’s sake”? and how does it differ from art?
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Pretty stout thread, with a fair amount of research. In essence, this is what I really come to the SDMB for. It woiuld be nice if someone had come forward and said “I know EXACTLY what that is” and presented a convincing case that this was so, but still a very good thread.
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By “art for art’s sake,” I believe one refers to an object or other assemblage that is composed strictly for its own aesthetic impact, not to promote something else or as a component of something else. A graduate student’s thesis project would be art for art’s sake. A facade for a theme restaurant might be art broadly defined, but it would be commercial art or decorative art, not art for art’s sake. (That said, “readymade” art, where a decorative or functional object is repurposed as art, would usually fall under the heading of “art for art’s sake.”
It’s the motto of MGM, and if you’ve seen any MGM movies lately you’ll understand how they differ from art.
3D printing has been about for well over 20 years. It has dropped in price at the the low end, and become something of a celebrated “new” technology, but that is more about publicity than reality.
The small size of all the components suggests limitations in the entire casting process. Something that would be consistent with what an art workshop might have, versus an engineering facility.
My understanding is that 3-D printing used only low-temperature plastic resins until quite recently. It seems like anything a university art student might have had access to around 2005-6 would not have been terribly useful at turning out durable art components. Certainly no reason to mass-produce them when casting duplicates from a hand-carved (or even CNC-machined) form would make more sense.
Was any kind of sintered-metal 3-D printing available to end users in that time frame?
Doesn’t look like any sort of nitrogen press I’ve ever seen.
The history of 3D printing according to Wikipedia. A university might have a machine for that. The printing or machined parts may only have been used to make models of the parts to make negative molds from. There aren’t that many different pieces, depending on the technique they may or may not have been able to reuse molds. But something was limiting the size they could work with.