Willow Leaf Bracelet

Intro

It all started with an innocent enough question from my friend, “Can you make 3D printed jewelry?”, and I said “What do you have in mind?”. Three months later I attended a wedding where all the bridesmaids were wearing my Willow Leaf bracelets while my best friends said their "I do."s under a Willow Tree.

I had tears in my eyes so didn't see a lot of the ceremony, but it turns out you can design beautiful jewelry from just a picture, it just takes a couple iterations and patience.

Design

If you've ever worked on a project for a client, it's pretty much the same be it software development, artwork, or any kind of commission-based effort. We discuss the needs, wants, and usage of the desired product, create a draft, discuss additions/removals/tweaks, create another draft, repeat until the client is happy.

After discussions I sketched up a design, and discussed limitations to the material, and sent that to the client. They provided screenshots of what designs/ideas they wanted incorporated in the the bracelet;

I'm no pro at Inkscape, I took some photoshop classes in college, but had to rely heavily on YouTube for “how to create SVG” and similar topics, a lot of learning but it's like riding a bike. This could all be done as a sketch (just upload image as canvas and sketch splines on that) in Fusion360 too, but I enjoyed learning the new tool, plus I've get a Cricut machine so the knowledge is useful there too.

I took these designs and created the first prototype by tracing willow leaves in Inkscape, then copy/pasting until I had a bracelet-sized length, and sent a screenshot to the clients;

They liked the design but I still had to tweak it for 3D printing, so the stem and connection points to the leaves all had to be thickened, and I ended up having all the leaves ‘terminate’ along a line, so I could have a banding wall run around the entire bracelet. The banding is necessary for ease of printing and of wear, otherwise it's too scratchy for skin contact. The first version I printed without this banding was too itchy/scratchy on the skin and the petals tended to break off way too easily.

The clients liked the top design better, both for the color difference and the symmetry along the edges, so I considered the design as complete. You'll notice the top design has points on the leaves, while the bottom design merges them into the wall. This is because the top design has the wall only going halfway up the print, so be mindful when designing your own part. I spent the next couple weeks tweaking the slicer (PrusaSlicer) and print settings, as well as doing my best to form it into final shape without severely deforming the design or breaking the plastic. Lots of learning, I treated it like a ceramics class, takes patience and a willingness to change if your current process isn't working.

Material

• x1 Spool of Translucent PETG 1.75mm filament
• x1 Spool of Gold/Accent Color PETG 1.75mm filament
• Teflon sheet/heat-&-water resistant gloves for forming

Printing

First step is tweaking your first layer adhesion, if you don't already have it tuned in for PETG, start here first so you're not dealing with this issue down the line. I wanted the base material to be as translucent as possible so I went with a satin sheet, which is trickier for PETG bed adhesion. Using hairspray, PVA glue stick, or textured sheet all makes dealing with PETG easier should you find yourself pulling out hair. 

I heavily adjusted my slicer settings to best match the pattern and shape I desired in the bottom and top layers, plus necessary walls for increasing the overall ductility of the material. More walls the better, but also makes it stiffer and more difficult to mold, too little walls and it tends to snap when being used as everyday wear.

Printing with 100% infill increases the transparency, acting as a prism, but since the design is so thin it shouldn't be an issue. There's better videos on YouTube about creating transparent parts, I based some of my settings off that; like CNC Kitchen 

I'm not including a profile since there are so many variations between prints, slicers, and even filament brands, you'll need to learn to tweak your own settings to truly have success in jewelry 3D printing.

Print your base in Translucent or sub-accent color PETG. I tried PLA but it was too brittle after too short a period to be useful for anything other than as short-term costume/cosplay jewelry. 

Add a filament change halfway, so the base is in one color, and the top is printed in another. You can print the entire piece in one color, but I liked hiding the banding a little. 

Finishing

After printing, I cleaned each one with sharp snips and a craft knife to remove any sharp corners/edges/pokey bits, then hit it quickly with a heat gun to remove any filament ‘hairs’, but not too long since it'll deform the part.

Now for the hard part, shaping them to look symmetrical and fit the wrist snugly. I tried many methods, and the one that worked best was having a large pot of hot water, and a ‘wrist mold’ with a strip cut from a teflon sheet to aid in shaping. I put the bracelets in the water, then used tongs to fold them gently into a “C” shape, before quickly pulling out of water. The parts are so thin they harden almost immediately on contact with air, which makes forming difficult. I put on the C shaped part on the wrist model and wrapped with a strip about 3" wide and 18" long (7.62cm x 45.72cm) I cut off the teflon sheet , then submerging into hot water again. When the part softened I'd pull it out and re-tighten the strip around the bracelet to form it snugly. 

This was tricky to do solo, might benefit from an extra pair of hands, unless you've been a dishwasher for so long near-boiling water no longer bothers you, then you'll have no issue.

I did try shaping these using hot air station and by heated bed on printer, but neither gave me as good or as smooth a result as using hot water. I'm sure there's an easier way to form these but could not find it in the timeframe I had.

Here's what the end result looked like:

And here's a gif I made of attempts to photograph some prototypes, cat paw for scale:

I created 30 of these in various sizes, for the bridesmaids in a wedding, both to ensure I had enough of each sizes, and in case any broke from usage/being snagged against a dress. Turns out there were no issues and not a single one broke!

Credits (TL;DR)

Designed with Inkscape for SVG, turned from SVG to OBJ with Fusion360 (Free Hobbyist License), printed in Translucent and Gold PETG OVERTURE filament on my Prusa i3 mk3 printer with 0.4mm nozzle and satin sheet. Prints were soaked in hot water and formed around a wrist mold for better sizing.  As a note, this project was a gift for my friends, I would not accept money. The opportunity to do something special for my friends wedding day was the highest honor in my eyes.