3D Printed Bachi

Building/Repair
#1

Hi, everyone! This is my first post in Bachido.
I’m an electronic engineer and with some friends made a 3D printer. We were amazed when it started to work!! My bachi has one side broken and the other was sharpened twice and I was looking for a new one. I looked to the 3D printer instead of looking on Ebay. Hehe! I designed the bachi with my computer, clicked “print”, waited 1 hour, retryed 3 times and voilá! My new bachi made of ABS plastic.

The termination isn’t PERFECT, it has some rugosity and some others details but it really good to play, it has a good flexibility and it can be customized! It’s lighter than a original acrylic bachi, it may be better for someone or worst for others. The cost… I don’t know… 1kg of ABS plastic filament cost me about US$20 and I think that I can print about 30 or more bachis.

I’m sorry if I made a sacrilege for the traditional players but I remembered that this topic was mentioned in Bachido and I couldn’t resist the temptation to do it >-

#2

You should sell these. You’d make a lot of money, and you’d go down in Shamisen History as an innovator. BTW, do you think that 3D Printing a Bachi would make it possible to make a Hatsune Miku Bachi? I would buy that

#3

How dare you, sir! :stuck_out_tongue:

That is awesome!! I agree with David, you should indeed strive to sell them! If they are flexible, that makes it really desirable.

Firstly, I would suggest stress-testing it. I’m not sure how strong ABS plastic is, but it would be good to strike it hard, tsugaru style. If it withstands a lot of abuse, then it’s perfect. :slight_smile: If it breaks, another material should be experimented with.

For the next level, it would be interesting if the bachi could be printed with a hollow space in the middle to insert a weight, and then filled in with plastic afterwards. Most bachi are weighted. I believe tsugaru bachi are between 130g~160g.

If it was heavy and strong enough to withstand tsugaru style playing, I would be honored to carry it in the Bachido Store! :slight_smile:

#4

I do like me some additive printers.

With that, homemade additive printers usually have fairly low layer resolution (you can see the layers in the image). These will definitely need some smoothing down. Sukui will result in the sounds of death with that raw print :stuck_out_tongue:

Otherwise, ABS plastic is pretty darn light. I’m assuming your printer doesn’t have dissolving material to print negative space. You most likely will have to cut out some space in the handle and add a weight in after the print.

My biggest concern with these is how thin bachis get. It may differ based on where you are buying your plastic from, but I have never had luck with ABS being that thin. Layers tend to break apart from each other.

Perhaps you could sand it down and then coat it with something to strengthen the tapered end?

#5

Thanks, everyone!

David. I never thought to make printed bachi for selling. I just made a 3D printer, looked the broken shamisen and a something was shining over my head (I’m sure that was not the sun, god or strange things like that). It’s an interesting idea! But first I have to make a good bachi. Thank you!

Lord Kyle!! Please, beg you perdon! =P
Thanks for the weight info and the hollow idea!! That kind of info will help me a lot! I’ll make another design to test. If a I can make a good bachi, you will be one of the first “beta tester” (depends on the mail service =P)

Teague, you are right. It is not smooth at all, it has little “stairs” that can be lower printing with lower layers. Itos are begging me to not to play shamisen with that bachi. Some make a “smoother” resolution using acetone (I just got some! Yeeeah! I’ll be testing).
Tonight I’ll sand it down. Thanks! And coat… I don’t have any experience coating… But I think that it will take off easily… Am I wrong? I’ll investigate and try it, thanks!
And yes, the ABS has 1.05g/cm3 and acrylic about 1.18g/cm3. And the printed bachi is not solid, has a square net structure inside (About 50% density). So… I think that the printed bachi weight a half of the original acrylic bachi (You are right, I don’t have a scale). Kyle advice make me ralize that there’s a range of weight and gave me a gooooood idea

#6

I wish you great luck with your future endeavors with this one. I’d love to see this work out.

#7

That’s amazing, please print lots of photos of these so that we can see the progress! Well done you!

#8

Very cool!

It may work well with nagauta shamisen since playing is not as strenuous as tsugaru style.

#9

I love it!!!
At the least of all (I mean if we can’t really use it to strike hard )
This could still be useful for beginners !
When you are just starting out learning the basics it might be fine to use a printed Bachi like this!

I would really love to see you guys work together and have this as an item in the Bachido store!

Good Luck with this! Awesome idea!

#10

Fabian, love your design :). Could you send me your designs because I would love to print it with ABS and LAYWOOD ;).

#11

i wonder how flexible abs is, the light weight would be good for my hands and as i’m not striking as hard as tsugaru people it might be a good choice for me. I’m certainly interested.

#12

Sorry, everyone! I was having a lot of work and some bad news about the printed bachi. I was testing it for 3 days, 3 hour per day and one side broke. The problem is that printed things have a weak pont, between layers. Now I’m tryng with other materials. I made a “crystal clear bachi” with a “secret ingredient” that even the NSA will know (just kidding!!) but the result was even worse!
I’ll keep trying. Wish me luck! n_n¡

#13

Hi Fabian!

Good to hear from you! That’s a shame that it’s been difficult to get a strong enough material.

May I ask, is it possible to get bulletproof glass in Argentina? A friend of mine made a bachi with that material, and it was very flexible! Though a bit thick, it it was sanded down, I could potentially see it being a real future for bachi. (And because it’s bulletproof glass, hopefully it wouldn’t break! :stuck_out_tongue: )

#14

A bulletproof glas??? O.O??? Haha! I never thought it but looks an very interesting idea. Do you have some pictures of “bulletproof glass” Bachi?

#15

A bullet proof bachi now i seriously hope for that to be available also in the bachido store soon … :slight_smile:

#16

Bulletproof ‘glass’ is polycarbonate, trade-named Lexan or Macroclear.

The traditional materials - ivory, shell and horn - all share the property of micro-serration on the polished edge. This may explain why very old ivory is prized (besides being old and ivory) - old ivory has begun to delaminate and the edge at a very fine scale would have more tooth than freshly polished new ivory. This reasoning assumes that the sounding of the string begins as the bachi hits the string and ‘saws’ across it before releasing with a twang. I believe therefore that there is ‘too smooth’ and some of the plastics might be too smooth.

Carbon fiber laid in epoxy resin might have some of the same properties of horn or ivory - a micro array of stiff fibers in a matrix. A shaped and polished striking edge of carbon fiber should have that same micro-serration of a natural material. Of all the man-made materials, this is the one that I think has the most potential to make a good bachi, though that thin corner is going to be problematic in any material. Titanium, maybe? Can your machine lay down sintered titanium?

#17

Hmm… that’s an interesting take. Riddle me this though, the micro-serration in a traditional bachi vs. completely smooth plastic - would the difference be enough for us to detect? And considering the force used and the attention being spread between the bachi, left hand fingering and surrounding distractions, would it be noticeable when in use?

Personally, I haven’t felt/sensed any grittiness with my bachi when striking the string, and don’t see any wear on the smooth nylon san no ito. If there is micro serration, it’s not enough to cause any wear on the string.

They used to make carbon fiber bachi in Japan. The great thing about it was being shatterproof. The main downside was it was so stiff, the wrist hurt when used for a long period of time.

#18

OK, OK, I am overthinking this. I do think there is a ‘grab’ (micro-serration as nothing is actually smooth at a very fine level) with a bachi. It may not be something that is really noticeable, but it does make me, for one, pick the same pick out of the pick pot when I play. I’m picky about picks.

The downside of polycarbonate is the Bisphenol-A released when working it - friction of sanding is plenty of heat to liberate the bad stuff. Good ventilation, careful dust collection and respirator all needed to work it. But you are dead right - polycarbonate has the perfect combo of strength+flexibility. Lexan is so tough it can be cold worked in a metal brake without heating it, bending it in a tight radius to a right angle! Delrin is another plastic that would be good bachi stock - a lot of guitar picks these days are Delrin.

Both are available in 1.25" and thicker from Interstate Plastics, thick enough to machine out a bachi from one piece.

I’m gonna stick with horn and wood for my bachi attempts for now, maybe some celluloid I already have.

#19

Old, pretty bachi:

#20

It may not be something that is really noticeable, but it does make me, for one, pick the same pick out of the pick pot when I play.

Absolutely! Well, the power of the mind is a powerful force, da yo. That’s why researchers have to do double blind tests where the both the volunteer AND the ‘server’ (whoever else is in the room) doesn’t know what is sample A and sample B.

Years ago, my brother’s ex-girlfriend (well, for civility’s sake, let’s just say ‘friend’) used to believe that unprocessed honey tasted better and more flavorful than Sue Bee, the processed honey available at Costco (which we had a big tub of). Well, us Abbott’s always in the mood for a test, we presented her with two kinds of unprocessed honey and Sue Bee (three in total). She closed her eyes and we proceeded to give her the samples. However! It wasn’t simply A, B, C. To completely rule out lucky guesses, memory and speculation, we gave the taste samples in an order of: A, B, B, C, A, C, A, A, B, A, C, and so on. The results? Out of a 1~10 score, she gave the unprocessed honey scores ranging from 5~7 (8 one time), and Sue Bee she gave a consistent 8~9.

Thus, to really confirm things, you should close your eyes and have your friend hand you many different picks, one of them being natural material and the other being different kinds of plastics. If there really is a difference, you should be able to notice. :slight_smile:

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