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A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding

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    Re: Traditional navigation by slide rule
    From: Bob Goethe
    Date: 2020 May 13, 12:37 -0700

    >>From Alan S:  I wonder as to whatever happened, if anything, to/with the Navigator's Sliderule project. <<

    I completed the design work on this slide rule a few years back.  At that time, I phoned a representative with the MakerBot 3D printing company and described the project to him, and he told me that 3D printing was not yet mature enough to produce an item with the precision required in a slide rule.

    Time passed, and I took another run at this last year.  It looks like 3D printing may be up to the task...but in going to an industrial grade 3D printing shop, it was going to cost me $800 to fabricate a single slide rule.  Even more if I wanted to fabricate a box to put it in.  Out of reach.

    I have looked at the quality available from home-hobbyist-grade 3D printers, and I am not convinced that they are up to the task...not yet.

    I had a NavList person from Jacksonville, Florida, phone me and say that he had had good experience with injection moulding of slide rules.  I took his name/phone/email on a piece of paper on my desk, and then like a fool cleaned up my desk and lost the paper.

    >>If you are out there, Jacksonville, please do get back to me! I am not ignoring you!  I am just an idiot who threw away your phone numeber!<<

    He and I agreed to collaborate on fabricating this slide rule.  He thought that the unit cost could below $100 each...which hits the sweet spot for me. 

    Bob

       
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