Life-Sized Sword of Omens
Description
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
Please let me know if there are any issues.
I'm aware that looking through the hilt only gives you the "Sight of Regular Seeing." Working on that.
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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.
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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.
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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).
Instructions
Also from my various prints, I determined that the blade pieces are stronger with the filament channel running up through it. Whether you put the filament in it or not. It forces the blade to be printed with a more solid column running up it which tends to make it stronger. You might also want to print the blade at a higher infill than usual.
I used Skeinforge's multiply for the cross pieces, blade pieces, and grip pieces. It slices a lot faster than making a printing plate.
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Update
If you want a blade that isn't going to snap along a layer I recommend the following:
1: Tweak your setup to make interior holes the correct dimension (and/or drilling the holes out).
2: Run a piece of filament or preferably 1/8th inch steel rod from hardware store through the channel of the blade pieces.
3: When the pieces are all glued (with acetone or acetone/ABS mixture) gently sand the joints being sure to lay the blade on a long supportive surface.
4: Lightly paint the entire blade with acetone to weld the layers into one unit.
5: Sand and finish (paint or color).
6: Fight Ancient Spirits of Evil.
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Changed tack, got some battleship grey made for me in PLA , extended the hand grip a tad to fit my hand and added red and black PLA within the same build to make the lion symbol ... Still contemplating whether i print a rock and have the sword protuding out of it or create the blade in grey and then at 90%of each part layer some glow in the dark yellow onto it . A work in progress but am getting there. Its got a 10% infill and was printed at 0.1 .
Looks great. Where did you get the PLA made?
For adding the glow in the dark, do you mean to paint on something at the end of each layer? Seems like that would make the blade very weak, which it already is. Not sure how to solve that problem other than the metal rod inside it, as mentioned.
I should revisit this design, add some snazzy to it. Light on the emblem or maybe a thicker blade with LEDs inside.
just makeing mine goin good so far
any one made an stand for it yet
nice sword , im trying to make it in glow in the dark blue PLA , will let you know how it ends up
hi i started printing the sword teh other day starting with teh tip, the lower half prints fine but the tip comes out all splodgie, i think its because i have too much platic being fed out when i get teh the finer details but i am unsure ow to rectify this in rep g.
any help would be appriciated
dante
If you are using Skeinforge you want to turn on "Cool" to "Slow Down" and minimum layer time to 10 or 15 seconds. Other slicers should have a means of slowing down the print as the area gets smaller.
What is happening is that the previous layer is still hot and melted when your put the next one on it. Slowing down allows it to cool a bit first.
How about a version of the sword in dagger form/mode?
For anyone who has printed blade tip, what setting did you use for the Cool function? I used a setting of 1 second min per layer and was still kinda globby at the top. It could be ground down, but I'd like to print a slightly better one if I can. (I'm using a Cupcake with a MK4 and Zydac's z-extender)
Either way, I hope to assemble and paint the parts in the next few days. :)
1 sec/layer would effectively disable the cool feature. (There's no way for a layer to take less than a second to complete) You want to bump it up so that it takes at least x seconds to finish a layer so it has time to cool before you put the next layer on it. I have mine set to 15 seconds. The MK4 can't slow-down the extrusion so you'll have to orbit. A stepper extruder slows down the extruder and feed rate so print it out perfectly. (Or as nearly as we can at this time) I recommend a stepper upgrade. Printed or otherwise. :)
TY for the great design.
On the blade i made threads in the holes and used M4 bolts(without heads) and screwed the parts together. I did not even need glue then... and.. i think it wold be nice if ALL parts had center holes too and it would be A LOT easier to assemble..
NICE SWORD DUDE!!! 8-)
FLATTERED :-)
Nice pics. Yeah I didn't even think about using threaded studs, and I used to install hardwood handrails for a living. (In which you use such bits of hardware) It would be trivial to add that but the question is how big do people want, what sort of hardware do people have available? I guess I'll just throw a 3mm hole in the middles and if one need it to be bigger they can drill it out or mod the sketchup. Thanks for the idea.
5. Please don't upload weapons. The world has plenty of weapons already.
:-P
I almost passed this by because I didn't realize the scale of it from the picture. MakerBots HOOOO!
License
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@ cyclone : the PLA was made by a company in Korea , i picked the colour and they made to order. - i have been trying to add a 2nd colour into the builds . so when you hit 90 % its rather easy just to change the colour mid build and the 10% thats then printed on top will give you that glow in the dark feel. The Glow in the dark filament is made by a company called faberdashery and they are located in Somerset UK.
iF you like i could organise my skype details with you and then send you a roll of this grey to try.......