Old German Christmas Bell

thingiverse

This bell holds a special place in my heart, as it was passed down from my Oma to my mom and now to me, making it a family heirloom of sorts. Every Christmas morning, our family would gather around the tree, eagerly awaiting the signal to open gifts - and that signal came in the form of this very bell being rung by my Oma. When we transitioned to spending Christmases at my mom's house, she took over the tradition, ringing the bell before handing out presents. Now that I'm hosting Christmas at my home, the bell has been passed down to me, making it a cherished family custom. I recently acquired a Cyclop 3D scanner and decided to scan this bell as one of my first projects. The results were decent, but not spectacular - which is why I was eager to try my hand at post-processing the data in Meshlab and Meshmixer. After applying Poisson reconstruction, smoothing out the model in Meshmixer, and adding back some features in Tinkercad, the bell looked reasonably accurate. However, I should note that I had to make some adjustments to recreate details like the lines at the bottom and the band at the top, which were lost during scanning. Inside the bell, I found an old nail used for the clapper - a nice touch of history that adds character to the piece. Considering the process was somewhat labor-intensive, it might have been easier to simply design a new bell in Tinkercad, but I'm glad I took on this challenge. The Cyclop 3D scanner has left me underwhelmed, and after listing it for sale on eBay, I'm eager to hear from anyone who's had better luck with the device. Despite my struggles, I've learned a valuable lesson about the importance of calibration and post-processing in achieving accurate scans.