September 27, 2024
Description
Background and inspiration:
When you think of Rochester NY, what likely comes to mind is lots of snow, Kodak, and maybe Wegmans. But to me, I think of flowers and the annual Rochester Lilac Festival! Every spring since 1898 thousands gather at Highland Park to celebrate the blooming of the largest collection of lilacs in the country! It kicks off with a big parade followed by dozens of live musical acts, local wine and beer tastings, many activities for families and children, and 5k and 10k races through the park, all while hundreds of artisans and vendors offer their goods and tasty treats. It’s a huge cultural event, all centered around that beautiful moment when the air is filled withe the aroma of lilacs in bloom.
The model:
This design is a lilac panicle or cluster of flowers, essentially what you would display in a vase. It consists of many small flowers that attach to knobs on a modular stem, and the stem pieces fit into one another so you can make the panicle as large as you like. Assembly is very easy and tolerances are fairly high on purpose - the pieces fit together as simply as possible to keep connections small and looking like actual lilacs, and at this size press-fitting connections are not stable enough. Thus, both stems and flowers are meant to be permanently attached with a small dab of super glue. When gluing the stem pieces together, make sure the orientations of the knobs are not aligned so you get a good 3D distribution of flowers for best visual appeal.
The plates as uploaded are set up with four stem pieces and enough flowers to fully populate them. The flowers are solid single pieces with over half a dozen petal designs for variety, and there are three different flower lengths. I suggest you use the longest ones at the bottom of the panicle/cluster. This part is critical – the flower petals print flat, but you need them to have a nice curve like real lilac
flowers (which can bend multiple ways depending on variety, but are always curved). The petals are the perfect thickness to be curved by hand when heated, which is easily done with either a hair dryer or by dipping them in boiled water. I found it easiest to mount a hair dryer in a vise so I could use two hands to shape the petals.
The 3MF includes some extra objects including an assembly/display base featuring the city logo of Rochester, a stylized flower for the Flower City! This is especially great when attaching flowers to the stem. If the base fits a little loose you can use some sticky tack or wax. There are also alternate stems for very dense flowers, a small spiral vase for display purposes, and a lilac mount/holder meant to be superglued into the bottom of the vase.
After assembly, if you would like to adjust the positioning of some of the flowers, you can heat the base of the flower with a hair dryer and carefully reposition the flower to get a perfect arrangement.
10/18/24 - added some lilac leaves on another profile. These can fit onto the stems, or you can print the long thin stems for positioning them independently in the vase. The leaves look a lot better if you shape them similarly to the flowers, and the long stems do a better job in the vase if they curve around each other and the stand as well.
Quick reference order of operations:
| 1 | Print flowers and stems - I also suggest you print the base which helps with assembly |
| 2 | Heat and bend flower petals (hair dryer or boiled water suggested) |
| 3 | Assemble stems ensuring the knobs are *not* aligned, use super glue |
| 4 | Add flowers onto knobs, using a tiny dab of super glue for each one (longest flowers at the bottom, and push each flower all the way down to the stem) |
Colors in model photos:
License:
Standard Digital File License
bovineblitz
