Ghost Face Bowling Pins - For UV/Black Light Party

This is a reduced size bowling pin model for a bowling game. The pin has a flat mouth surface and ghost face inlays (eyes & mouth) for use with UV/Black Light, or other purpose. The pins have been scaled in size to ~75% of a traditional 10-pin bowling pin. Then, to fit most printers, I squashed the Z axis down a bit to hit 240mm, so that it would print on many printers. Even though the pins are smaller than a traditional pin, they are still fairly large.

There is a right eye and a left eye. These are not interchangeable. Print one of each for each pin.

The mouth surface is flat so that the mouth inlay can be printed on its face, without supports. The mouth is placed on the pin face with the small end notch on the back pointing up. There are several notches on the back, to allow for the mouth to lock in with the epoxy, but on the two ends, only one has the notch, which points up.

I glued in the inlays and magnets with "5-Minute" 2-part epoxy.

I made a bowling base board with inlay pin markers to help with set-up. I included a stencil for marking the placement of pin markers, scaled to match the scaled down width of the pins, compared to a traditional 10-pin set. When using the stencil, start with the back line and work your way forward. The included photo shows the stencil aligned with the front three pin markers.

This bowling set will be used in a carnival type setting where the pins will be set up manually for each player, and this needs to be done fairly quickly. So, I also inset pairs of round ceramic magnets (0.71" x 0.2") in the board, each with opposite polarities facing up; then inset matching magnets in the bases of the pins, so that when the pins are placed somewhat facing forward on their markers, the magnets would attract to their polarized mates and align the pins facing straight forward -- the pins will resist being placed crooked or in a different orientation. I drilled the magnet receiving holes in the base board with a 0.75" Forstner bit. The holes for the bottoms of the pins are designed in, but the pins can be printed without magnet holes, if you don't want to use magnets. I included a small magnet marker stencil, which I used to mark the drill holes for the magnets, in relation to the pin markers for each pin. See photos.

After installing the magnets, I painted the MDF base board with multiple coats of black spray paint and clear coat, so that it is fairly durable. Then, I installed the pin marker inlays with epoxy.

I printed the pins and stencils using Basic White PLA, at 0.20mm layer height, 0.4mm nozzle, 6 perimeters X, Y, & Z (for durability), with 15% Gyroid infill, and with manually painted supports only for the magnet holes on the bottom of the pin.

I printed the face piece inlays and the pin marker inlays with Transparent Yellow PETG, 100% infill. I have used two different brands of transparent-like yellow PETG, and both work really well for UV/black light reactivity. This last time I purchased RANKI PETG and it worked well. In the past I used 3D Solutech See Through Yellow, and it worked great for UV reactivity. You can also use glow-in-the-dark filaments with UV lights; they don't react quite as brightly at the other filaments that I mentioned above, but they retain the glow, which the regular PETG will not do.

I am still working on what type of bowling ball I want to use. I have some plastic pumpkins, but they might be a little bit too light to knock over the pins how I want them to. We shall see. :D