Dadio's 3D Printing Stuff

[Dadio]

More stuff , I've been busy , redesigned a more rigid extended trailing arm for the Dogfighter and printed them in PETG as well as a top deck, you asked about the bottom of the top deck where the support was removed so there's a picture of that as well , its mostly tightly bonded with a few loose bits on the bottom layer around the edges , and finally I had a little play with a Groot model from Thingiverse , firstly a white one then a red one and finally a 12% wood PLA version , I also printed a wooden crate , again a Thingiverse download of a credit card holder but i down sized it to 60% and that will go in the bed of my Bruiser clone . The wood filament had a little stringing but on the crate it actually looks really wood grain , you can also use normal wood stains on it and that's what I've on both the Groot and the crate.

[Dadio]

As suggested I tried printing the Dogfighter top deck on its side in PETG but with the layers in that plane it took very little effort to snap off the member that braces the top of the servo saver , maybe I was printing too cool at 140°C or the layer height of 0.12 mm was too thin but the print was hard and brittle , the finish was better from the top but on the supported sides had the same loose look and more visibly on the sides of the chain guard than having the support just underneath , its a pity as the top surface was far nicer with just fine linear lines rather than cross hatched finish of the horisontal print .

[Dadio]

Grrrr been fighting Fusion 360 half the day , I've been trying to model up a Stock for a custom Airsoft gun , a MK1 Bren Gun , its a conversion of another gun a ZB 26 , its all odd angles , nothing parallel or right angled and curves and very precise shaped cavity's everywhere , I think I'm nearly there and have a draft quality print ( 6.25 hours ) nearly done now , I just hope it all fits up well enough , then its on to a very long print in wood filament , the test print is being printed vertically with minimal support but I'll have to print it horizontal on edge for a final print so it follows a wood like grain , probably will need a raft and a ton of support but I need any poorly finished parts downward out of sight , tempted to do the raft on plain white PLA and change the filament for the stock .....

[Dadio]

My little 9.5 hour print was successful , i still need to tweak it a little but the next one will be in wood filament .
the support came of fairly well but there was tons of it and a raft .







the quality of the surface is poor but its only two layers and very low infill , in its final form I'm thinking five or six layers and a higher infill , I'm pleased with the layering/grain effect .

[Dadio]

I finished all the test prints and have a finished design for the stock so i went ahead and printed a wood filament version and it failed about 15 hours into a 17 hour print due to a blocked nozzle , I'm printing a second one now but I'm not sure i have enough filament left so fingers crossed , I've ordered more wood filament and a 0.5 nozzle that hopefully will not block up .
I'm pleased with the partial print though , it look very nice . Dan look away now as your going to hate the supports and raft i had to use , i needed the layering to be on a plane like wood grain and any imperfections to be on the bottom so i had to print it in the orientation .




the red part is a piece that connects the sling mount plates so it can have a functional sling mount , the stock has to be hollow to fit a battery for the airsoft gun .

[Dadio]

The stock came out well , i did a little staining on the failed print to show the effect , it's just one coat and no sanding.





The darker bands in the stain are caused by an odd effect in the print layer , at first i thought it was caused by under extrusion , maybe a partial blockage but its exactly the same on the second and complete print so it must be a slicer artifact , looks good the way it catches the stain though

[GoMachV]

Wow that looks great! Nice work

[XLR8]

It's amazing how much that looks like real wood. For instances, fir and spruce have very fine and straight grain patterns similar to your stock. With a little sanding and perhaps a coat of shellac, it could be very convincing.
Could you have salvaged the interrupted "failed" print by printing the second half and gluing the pieces together?

[Dadio]

If I could count the layers I could print the top piece and glue it together but it would be the equivalent of a shelf queen , Airsoft is just like paintball , its very" rough and tumble" and I just don't think it would be strong enough if it was glued together .
I just got in from my workshop where I've been sanding and re staining , the results are very good to say the least , even holding it it feels like wood , the real give away is if you run a finger nail across the grain , its too regular and has a plasticky resonance ,otherwise its really convincing .

[Dadio]

pictures after sanding and re staining.

[Dadio]

I found i'd made a slicing mistake , i made the walls 5 layers thick but not changed the default 2 layer base and top layer anyway another will be printed for the project , in the mean time I've sanded , stained and even linseed oiled it , other than the bottom looking rough as i can't sand it smooth it looks really good , even feels and smells right with the linseed oil on it !






And here it is next to the crappy wood one that came fitted to the airsoft gun originally .

[ROH73]

That's really impressive; I love it!

[XLR8]

Looks great Dadio. I doubt that the original wooden stock ever looked that good.
How about a nice mantle clock next?

[Dadio]

The airsoft gun is a cheap Chinese one and their idea of finishing the wood is a coloured varnish that chips off and the wood is like balsa wood ! My version looks way better and is heaps stronger as well , the wood one is cracked in two places !

[Dadio]

Two more bits , firstly some Schumacher Cat XLS 12 mm hex wheel adapters , we tested them last night on my friends car and they worked really well.

the next bit is a front bulkhead for the Yokomo YZ-834B Dogfighter , its printing now .