Helicone Kinetic Sculpture

The Helicone is a fascinating and mesmerising construct, which changes shape and aspect then you spin it. This is a very twiddlesome version  - so much so that if you were to place it near a room door or in a hallway then every time you walk past it you will give it a twiddle, guaranteed!

Printing

I printed everything with a 0.4mm nozzle at 0.2mm height, 4/4/4 walls/top/bottom and 15% infill. This gives the Spars a bit of weight behind them for spinning, and also adds a bit of strength to the catch on top of them so that they don't sheer off. As the Rod is printed horizontally, standard or even Silk PLA would probably be strong enough, but just in case I used PLA+.

The rest can be printed with whatever PLA you want for visual effect - a decent Wood PLA might work well, or perhaps a Dual Colour Silk, Gold and Silver maybe? Or use individial colours as I did. If you want three even colours for a tricolore, then miss out one of the Spar - 11 so that you will have 3 x 7 Spars to work with.

Make sure that the top of each Spar is nice and flat (where the number is) so that it will spin freely.

Assembly

Simply print two of each of the numbered Spars, then build the sculpture up with Base, Rod, Spars 1-11, Spars 11-1, Top Spar and Handle. When you are happy that it all spins freely, glue the Rod into the Base, and then the Handle onto the Rod - leave about 1mm of free space between the Handle and the Top Spar so that they are all kept in place but are also free to rotate easily.

Not convinced? Here is an example of twiddling:

If you like this model, then please:

EdinBearDragon.