Heart base

thingiverse

This is a wood-based masterpiece I designed where you can add engraving (before printing). I engraved, printed this in Hatchbox Wood+PLA filament, sanded, stained, and added acrylic. (Having never worked with wood before, this seemed to turn out remarkably well). I detailed the process in the Post-Printing section with pictures. I also explained how to engrave in the How I Designed This section. Everyone I showed this to believes it's real wood and wonders how I engraved so perfectly ("with a computer, right? but how?"). They are surprised that it was 3D printed. My wife (who this gift was intended for) took ~15 seconds to realize this was 3D printed - a record long time for her - possibly also due to not believing I could actually burn/engrave wood. (Note: don't expect to print wood, then engrave by burning... the PLA+wood filament would only melt, not burn). Good luck - hope to see what you produce. Print Settings Printer Brand: Printer: Rafts: No Supports: No Resolution: 0.1984mm Infill: 15% Notes: added a brim - probably didn't matter Post-Printing Yep, it's printed wood (mostly). Awesome. Ok, those letters were too small. Along with my Simplify3d settings (and maybe all of them), the filament got strung over/bled over the words. LOTS of sanding and metal-tooth-picking each letter later, it looks better. FUTURE NOTE: always sand in lines (left/right) so that later staining follows the sanding lines. Stained once all over. Those odd scuff marks are my using a dremel to sand and not in the same directions. Staining highlights all errors. I want those awesome natural-wood stain lines. IDEA: let the 2nd staining just drip down each line between the words. Then wipe off in the same direction. Totally worked. New stain lines visible. Also, using a darker (near black) stain for the edges. Acrylic applied once and wet. Acrylic applied 3rd or 4th time (30 minutes dried each time in front of a purifier fan to avoid dust). Final - day later - 4th acrylic coat dried. 1st attempt at this - really looks and feels amazing. How I Designed This Text Engraving Steps The following steps show how to engrave text into an object. It's by default easy to add text as a solid or merge, however, to indent, it takes a few more steps. A few specifics: The object height is ~11mm. I create the text at 10mm and sink it 5mm deep. The depth helps for the staining to get in and make it darker. (It also makes the printout take much longer as it has to handle text details for half the object). The bigger and bolder the text, the cleaner the letters will be. Really small and cursive fonts won't indent well as the filament bleeds over during printhead travel. Use the 'Text' tool and add text on the heart. Center, etc. Select the text (sketch), click the gear button, and the Extrude Text button. Extrude up beyond how much you will indent. This is to get a handle later if needed. REMEMBER to select Solid (circled in red), not (default) Merge. After extruding 10mm (as an example), I moved it 5mm down into the object (half the object height). Select the Subtract tool (circled). Then select the heart/object, then the text and click on the background. The text will be subtracted from the heart. The original Text sketch is still there and needs to be deleted. Select and delete. The result is an indented set of text.