Pip for Imperial rank bar (Star Wars Cosplay)

thingiverse

Here's what I found online about making an Imperial Navy rank bar: it needs to be 1/2" wide, 3/4" high, and have a thickness of 1/8". That's according to the 501st site. It might not pass their strict requirements, but for most uses, it should do. I wanted to make an Imperial Navy rank bar for my friend's Star Wars costume, but I had trouble finding the materials needed to create movie-accurate pips. So, I decided to use 3D printing as a solution. I found some models that combined the rank bar and pips into one unit, but none with just individual pips. That's when I created this model. With it, you can print the pips and attach them to a 1" aluminum strip to create something closer to what was seen in the movie. I printed the pips with two shell layers and 15% infill, and then attached them to the aluminum backing bar by gluing them on and rotating them so that the side touching the build plate faced outwards. This method hides a lot of the texture left behind by the printer while still giving the pips a degree of shiny translucence. One could also try using translucent filament to take this idea even further. This approach is a big time-saver because we can just print the pip in whatever color we want and be done with it - no need for painting. I hope someone finds this helpful!