Wednesday Workbench 08 June 2022

 

Apologies for the lack of posts since last Wednesday. Mostly I've been tweaking and testing the printer profiles. I had thought I was almost there, but there are a couple of issues which are still niggling me.

Having printed a few bits for the big project which had defects, I decided that rather than binning them I would put them to use for practicing sanding the prints. In the photo above, the print on the left has had three light coats of filler primer; the one on the right hasn't.

Here are some pics taken after two rounds of sanding, the first with 120 grit, the second with 180 grit. 

Both came out fairly smooth, but some layer lines can still be felt in places. The one treated with filler primer is smoother than the non-primed one. I think that three coats may have been a bit too heavy. I might try another piece with one light coat for each stage of sanding to avoid it clogging up recessed lines and details.

Tomorrow I will prime both pieces black and then give them a white drybrush to see how smooth the surfaces are.

When not tweaking & testing profiles, I have been printing a few things:

Most of them are bits and bobs to either "prettify" or upgrade the printer, in some cases both. As well as the obvious test prints, I have printed a heap of OpenLOCK clips for the big project, some sanding sticks and some printable grass.

"Printable Grass?"

Yes. I happened upon a set of files on Thingiverse while searching for terrain files and was intrigued. The files are designed to print 60mm long strands, but I shrank them down to 30mm long:

Part of the reason I was interested in these was that I wasn't truly happy with the "kunai grass" bases that I did last year and these might offer a much better solution. No, I'm not planning to print them in purple - it's possible to get filament in various suitable colours.