Faking Filament Color

Filament is not 100% opaque, it still maintains a reasonable transparency. This allows us to fake a filament color by printing a few layers of one color on top of another color. For example, if you print a few layers of blue on top of multiple white layers, the result will look like light blue. And if you print that same blue on top of black, the result will look like dark blue.

You are not limited to make colors lighter or darker, you can mix any two colors. For example, I printed yellow on top of red and I was getting orange (see photo). Obviously, it will take some experimenting before you know how many layers to print. That is where this tool comes in handy. It will show you the result colors for 0-10 layers (on top of the base color). The tool is 2mm thick, bottom 1mm is the base color, top 1mm is the prime color.

The tool has been designed to be printed at 0.1mm. You do have to set it up properly in your slicer. The tool is 2mm thick, so we want a color change (filament change) right before it starts printing the layer at 1.1mm. This is done in your slicer, if you have never done this, please read up on it.

Pointing out the obvious: faking a filament color will only work for flat surfaces. But in most cases, this is sufficient.