July 27, 2011
Description
I decided to make a version of the sword from the 80's cartoon. As an exercise for using sketchup and for a present for a friend's birthday. Just in time for the impending "event" (T-cats reboot), this Friday.
I spent a lot of time on the model. I started with a few models from 3dwarehouse. None were very good for printing, or scaled well for actually holding. All of them relied on textures for details that wouldn't show up after printing.
Initially the model came out too small. Then it didn't fit the hand well. Once it was sized and shaped correctly I had to work out how it could be chopped up to fit my build envelope. The latest version has location holes to help line up parts and glue together. It seems that the blade has benefited greatly from the interior channel. Even without the filament the blade is stronger.
I'm working on another version with an insert for the eye and an insertion slot for the blade. So that the whole sword can be printed by colors: grip, blade, eye, jewel.
Finished sword is about 45 inches (1145mm) from pommel to tip.
Oh and time for print @ 30mm/s min layer time of 20 secs:
6x blade pieces 5 hours
blade tip 1.75 hours (cool min layer makes it take a long time)
eye holder 2.5 hours
2x grip pieces 2.75 hours
pommel pieces 2 hours
total about 14 hours
Update V2:
Added an update eye holder piece, with an insertion hole for the blade, the blade can be printed (in an optional extra color) and sanded/cleaned/finished then inserted into the holder. The insertion point's clearance hasn't been tested, but should be close. Might need sanding cleaning for the blade to fit.
Also the new holder has inserts for the eye and cat emblem, which can be printed in two colors using the whole pause and swap method when it first starts printing the upper portion. This is also not printed yet but should be good. I'll print these and repport back later today.
So for this, obviously instead of eye-holder.stl you'd use eye-holderV2 and the inserts. One of each or two of the same one.
Switching to work in progress.
Update V3:
Found a small geometry problem in the eye holder as well as the fact that the thin ring (around the eye/cat image) was too thin to print nicely so changes to the inserts as well. Apologies if this print is too tall, I looked up the build envelope for a stock cupcake and fixed the model to stay under the published height of 130mm but if you have trouble with that use the V3 eye holder and the new shorter blade pieces.
Removed the original eye holder to reduce confusion. Any combined print can be exported from the sketchup.
Update V4:
Added the center channel for using threaded rod or double ended threaded studs. The hole is a 3mm and can be drilled out to a larger dim if need be. I've left the other registration holes for those that prefer to use that.
Also reversed the extrusion on the cat-insert to get around skeinforge's refusal to fill thin features. Prints much nicer. If you've already printed one, this one is a big improvement (see photo).
License:
Creative Commons - Attribution - Share Alike
cyclone
