Elf Head

thingiverse

If you have read the Harry Potter series, you may remember that the noble House of Black mounted their past house elves on the wall as a testament to great service. We thought it would be fun to create and print a 3D model for our home. We call him Steenker. Print Settings Printer Brand: RepRap Printer: Prusa i3 1.75mm (Mk 1) Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: 0.1 mm Infill: 25% Notes: I printed him in five parts using PLA - face, neck, each ear, and head. I also added slots to the back of the head for screw mounts. Post-Printing Post-processing took far longer than printing, but this was my first large, multi-part print. 1) Cut a bevel edge around the perimeter of where each part would be joined. In the future, I would divide the model into parts and bevel the edges in software. 2) Merge the parts by using PVC primer and sticking them together. Allowed to dry overnight). I did one part at a time completely. Taking an old shoe box and cutting a hole in the end allowed me to set them up with one ear pointing down. 3) Fill in the edges using the fusion welding technique and a dremel tool. This was a lot of fun. 4) Sand, fusion weld to fill in cracks, sand. 5) Use XTC 3D over the entire model to fill in the cracks/step lines. This had to be done in multiple parts because it started pooling where I didn't want. 6) Sand and apply primer with airbrush. 7) Paint, paint, paint, paint. Building up the layers with different colors and some sanding to change the texture. For the last layer, I used the technique of wetting the model, applying salt (3 different sizes - sea salt, kosher, table) and painting. Then brush off the salt.