SIMS Plumbob for Costume/Fancy Dress Party

thingiverse

SIMS plumbob for wearing to a costume/fancy dress party. There are two versions. For the first version, the top and bottom halves are held together with magnets. This allows you to open the plumbob and put something inside like a torch or LED light to have the plumbob glow. The other version is more basic and the top and bottom halves need to be glued together. I have only printed the first version myself. The plumbob, not including the wire, support tube and headband, measures 208 mm in length. The top half is 100 mm and the bottom half is 108 mm, with the extra 8 mm due to the cylindrical section required to attach it to the headband. It's width at the base between opposite parallel edges is 80 mm. Width at opposite vertices of the base is 92.4 mm. The overall weight of the plumbob, including magnets, but not including the wire or headband is 60 g. (Magnets 3.3 g, upper and lower plumbob 3D prints 56.7 g). For the magnetic version, you will need six 6x3 mm cylindrical magnets (3 magnets for each half). The magnets are readily available from online stores such as eBay and AliExpress. These should be inserted such that in one half, all magnets have the same polarity facing out (eg, North) and in the other half, all magnets should have the opposite polarity facing out (eg, South). The magnets require a bit of force to insert. They may or may not require some material to be scraped away before insertion - it just depends how much your prints spread. If you have difficulty inserting the magnets, you can use a pair of blunt-nose pliers to help insert them. Although this may mar the print, as it is on the inside it won't be visible. I had to do this with a couple of my magnets. There's a possibility that the magnets will need a drop of super glue to hold them in place. Mine did not. To mount the plumbob, I used a cheap black plastic alice headband, 40 mm of wire from a basic coat hanger and the support tube which I printed in black PLA. The width of the coat hanger wire is 2.4 mm or 3/32 inch. I used a 2.4 mm bit to drill out the hole in the support tube and about 10 mm into the bottom of the plumbob. Using a hobby knife I scratched up the surface at the very top of the headband where I wanted to attach the support tube. This is to give the glue more surface area to adhere to and give a stronger bond. I super glued the support tube onto the headband and also the 40 mm length of wire into the support tube. When the super glue has fully cured, the last step is to super glue the plumbob onto the wire.