Beauty in leather..

youmagine

This is almost impossible to manage without years of training in stampmaking, leatherworks and portret making talent, or an Ulti and out of the box thinking. Convert the picture of your choice. Keep the background as simple as possible. If not, use a lasso selection tool in any photo editing program to trim the background. Many times there is a black and white option also, try to minimize colors. Settings will be in conjunction with your goal. To produce a lithograpic stamp, keep the height below 0.4mm, baseplate must be thick enough to carry weight, 3mm will do. Soft PLA works fantastic for ink stamps!! If you want to see through (in a frame before a window or light source), baseplate has to be maximal 1mm. Make use of a brim, print height 0.1mm max. Start really slow, increase print speed after the first five layers, you absolutely don't want it to curl. For leather stamps: look at the grain of your leather, measure the top layer thickness, divide in two, that's your stamp height on top of a 4mm baseplate. For further use or more imprints, increase to 6-10mm. Keep in mind to mirror your print if you want to use the original position of your model or in case of characters. Place tools and wooden plates in your reach and open hot water valve. Temperature should be between 65-70°C, (if it is too hot to hold your hand in it, it will probably be ok) too hot will shrink your leather too much, too cold will not penetrate enough. You put as less leather for about 20 seconds in the streaming water as needed for your design, put your design on the leather, clamp between two wooden plates as tight as possible for about 1 minute, release clamp and inspect your result. Also try: Print a name or word in any character you want on plane paper, black on white, take a PrintScrn shot or make use of your camera, convert and print. Try the same word, change color for every character, make use of clean colors, convert, set height at 10mm on a 2mm baseplate and you'll get the same word but every character will be different in height. Not useful for leather though, but it will make beautiful cookie stamps. Take a picture or copy paste the logo of your favorite brand and print in 5mm height on any surface of a random case you'll print in the future. Save the STL without a base plate, tell Cura you have a dual extruder, import your case and logo, right-click on the logo, combine the two STL's and save. Don't forget to change your settings at single extruder and print your branded case. Have fun. Problems: Design not fully penetrated for the whole surface: Soak again for 20 seconds, repeat steps but replace clamp more to unfinished side, or make use of two clamps. Too many big spots: try to print faster at the last layers or increase print height. Try to play a little with the spikes, the bigger amount, the more detail. You always have to look from a certain distance, but it will be an unique gift, for instance: Face and name in a 70x45mm leather plate on the backside of a new pair of jeans: Especially made for ....By Levis. Too much blur: Try to decrease details in picture (Paintshop Pro 7 is the perfect tool imho) Any other: contact me.