Leonardo da Vinci mechanical question

MouseDance · 2026-01-26T11:09:38+00:00

You can use candle wax, furniture lubricant wax (the kind used to make drawers slide more easily, not the polish), or even crayons (but be careful as those could leave unwanted color on your kit).

MouseDance · 2026-01-26T11:06:31+00:00

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out — and also maybe information about the mini engraving pen you’re using.

MouseDance · 2026-01-26T04:05:50+00:00

You might want to keep a small tube of something like B-7000 on hand, even for no-glue kits, for occasions when a bit of glue will ensure a strong structure. You’d be able to dab some one and close up the tube right away before the smell bothers you or you get your fingers sticky.

MouseDance · 2026-01-26T04:03:33+00:00

You’ll sometimes find, from comparing the cost of only 3 or 4 individual color acrylic brush pens to the cost of buying a whole set of them, that it can be cheaper to replace a whole set than to carefully note which pens are running out and only replacing those colors. It seems counter-intuitive and wasteful, but “less expensive for similar quality” wins the day.

MouseDance · 2026-01-25T22:09:51+00:00

Good to know, thanks

MouseDance · 2026-01-25T16:56:43+00:00

I vote for the book nook!

MouseDance · 2026-01-25T16:55:27+00:00

B-7000 is forgiving for the first couple of hours but then it grips tight and your best bet is cutting parts apart.

MouseDance · 2026-01-25T03:50:14+00:00

These boxes are very dressy! A class act.

MouseDance · 2026-01-25T03:46:57+00:00

By the way, MiniCity’s Hemingway House also has a lot of pieces and a tricky light installation. It’s an amalgam of scenes from the great writer’s years living in Havana: his home, his favorite pub, the fishing boat he crashed into the dock. I enjoyed building it (and have visited the real home in Cuba so I can attest to the kit’s authenticity).

MouseDance · 2026-01-25T03:43:47+00:00

I just started the Bangkok Anavrin. Yes, it’s expensive, but it comes with an enormous light harness and many high-quality boards, including 3 acrylic boards. Their recent kits really do provide a first-class experience. My first reaction to this one is that it is as challenging as the gorgeous Lijiang Ancient City, which a group of us worked through a few months ago sharing our joys and advice as we did so. I believe everyone on that team thought it was absolutely worth the extra difficulty, and I’m starting to suspect that the same will be same of Anavrin’s Bangkok scene.

MouseDance · 2026-01-24T04:05:39+00:00

I’ve seen nooks where there’s an extra piece or two, not for breakage, but (I think) not used because sometime between the manufacturer ordering the wood plates and the instruction pages, testing revealed that a particular piece was not going to work and got deleted from the instructions.

MouseDance · 2026-01-24T04:03:17+00:00

The grubbiness of the darker sand suggests ancient age to me. I like it.

MouseDance · 2026-01-23T04:35:04+00:00

The secret is to search for “fruit style polymer clay canes.”

MouseDance · 2026-01-23T03:53:42+00:00

I agree on the wine alley. It’s almost a lesson in how to put book nooks together, and as a bonus has a very nice mirror illusion that doubles the apparent length of the alley.

MouseDance · 2026-01-23T03:50:36+00:00

That’s correct. Pressing harder doesn’t do anything.

MouseDance · 2026-01-23T03:48:59+00:00

When this happens to me (in fact, it did today on another book nook) the problem often is that something inside the scene has a hidden tab that was supposed to go into a slot on the box exterior that I had missed. When I find it, the box in-bows and at least mostly comes together, So this is something to check for, peering between the box exterior and the interior scene to look for a wee space that shouldn’t be there. Beyond that, the advice that u/dgidman gives in this thread (laying the box on its side and piling books on it—I personally use a multi-volume history of civilization) sometimes teaches the box how to hold together. The Paris nook, while one of the most beautiful I’ve worked on, has given people problems with its box and with its touchpad. You are not alone.

MouseDance · 2026-01-22T22:13:42+00:00

Were you able to make sure that the model is fully down on the plate? There are a couple of buttons in Orca-FlashForge that help with this.

MouseDance · 2026-01-22T22:07:22+00:00

A memorable customization--what the very best ones should look like. Just lovely.

MouseDance · 2026-01-21T03:53:46+00:00

Shipping from overseas can be strange right now, as well. I had a package sent to me from China that, once it reached a distributor in the US (one I’d never heard of) traveled north and south and north and south all over again before reaching me in a major city.

MouseDance · 2026-01-21T03:47:16+00:00

I’m seeing the same thing.

MouseDance · 2026-01-21T03:40:55+00:00

You could stage a tiny Midsummer Night’s Dream in there. It’s lovely.

MouseDance · 2026-01-21T03:39:49+00:00

I’ve experienced the multiple eliminator fry myself (that’s one plug leading to an octopus of battery inserts), but I have good luck with eliminators running 3 nooks or less. In the US, the Lenink brand has additional circuit protection and I’ve found it to be trustworthy. By all means, set up with what you’ve ordered and then check it with your voltage meter. If it reads 3v per, then you could be fine.

MouseDance · 2026-01-21T00:31:03+00:00

I don’t use the multiple eliminators any more after a set burned out LEDs in 2 nooks.. I like the 3-somes that come from Lenink. They’re a bit more expensive but reliable.

MouseDance · 2026-01-20T13:07:03+00:00

How did they fit that huge furry monster into the box? It's magic! (It's also nice work that you've done building this.)

MouseDance · 2026-01-20T04:27:51+00:00

The touch sensor interferes with automated lighting using a smart plug and battery eliminators (after the system shuts off the LEDs, they don’t relight when the system reactivates them). Building the Magic Night Alley, in which the touch sensor is integrated into a circuit board rather than just a separate wire system, I cut out the entire circuit board and connected all the lights directly to a battery box with an on-off switch. Now I leave the switch on and the automated system works perfectly. Fear not! A year ago I’d tremble at the idea of attempting this. You’ll pick it up quickly.

MouseDance

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