6 replies to this topic

[paul]

Hey guys!

Today I?ve finished building my 20mm star pump to quickly produce hard and sturdy stars without having a press or a star plate.





You can see the other pictures HERE


With that device you can produce alot of 20mm stars in little time (of course a star plate would be faster but it?s much more work to build such a thing)

I hope the pix explain how it works. If not, just feel free to ask. Just wanted to share my "construction" with you

With best regards,

paul

Edited by paul, 29 September 2006 - 11:31 AM.

[fishy1]

I recently tried making one, but it took me ages and when I finished the thing it kept sticking, so I just cut or roll stars. Yours looks pretty neat.

[paul]

It really is not that hard to make one. You just have to use a sharp drill. The rest is done by filing.

You can see how easy it slides in the tube in this short video. It really is worth making one I think. Does not cost two euros and is great to work with!

http://www.zippyvide...54696/100_1131/

[pyromaniac303]

For almost all of my stars I use syringe based star pumps (cut the end off a syringe so you have a cylinder/plunger assembly then cut off the individual stars as you slide them out with the plunger). It doesn't give very good edges though cutting them, as the edges do not cut smoothly enough and although the sides are perfectly formed and straight, the places where you cut them off are slightly rough. This can cause crumbling if the binder is not very good, but since I swapped from a strange glucose based binder to dextrin have not had any breaking up.

I think that the star pump you have built would be much easier to use than my method, but won't you get corrosion problems with the metal surfaces and certain comps? I know that the blades I use to cut stars from the syringe go rusty a couple of days later if not cleaned thoroughly.

[paul]

You?re perfectly right! But I don?t use APC or some other corrosive chemicals that would give unstable compounds or stuff.

The 3mm pin in the plunger is easily removed. Then you can clean it just through rinsing tap water through it. So corrosion will be no problem!

(I used a syringe for my 20mm stars before, too but was not satisfied with the wide range of density and size the stars had...

[hoarp001]

Mm, nice. whats the middle section made out of? how did you attac that pin?

[phildunford]

I use a simple wooden dowel in mine (with a brass screw)...

Easy to make with simple tools. Don't make it too tight as it can swell a bit when it's damp.

No good for real mass production I suppose, but I have made many hundreds of stars with pumps like this and it's surprisingly fast.

There is 'how to' on my website in the tools/starpumps section.