/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>1336710
I split the model up into pieces that 1) made sense anatomically, 2) would conserve support material, and 3) would print in about 9-10 hours so I could do one piece at night and start another one before work. Most of the pieces are at 0% infill, .1mm layer height, and 1.2mm thickness (4 perimeters). The head is at 20% infill to support the interior of the mouth and the arms are at 65% infill for strength. I used gray ABS and Simplify3D for everything.

I sanded the pieces a good deal first. For the legs and feet, I wanted them to be heavy so I used a soldering iron to make a hole in those parts and filled them with a heavy plaster (Durham's Water Putty). You can use plain resin or Rondo but I don't have enough ventilation for that and Durham's is far cheaper.

I am going to use heated acetone vapor in a crock pot to smooth out the head because I really don't want to break of the teeth trying to sand the tongue. I can go into detail with that if you are thinking of using ABS.

The torso pieces needed to be strong but not as heavy as the legs so those have some epoxy resin slushed around the inside for strength.

To put things together, I glopped on ABS/acetone sludge on the faces of the minor pieces - the feet to the legs, the fins to the arms, and the upper torso/lower torso/proximal tail/distal tail parts. I'm going to be making molds of the parts otherwise I would have just attached everything together in one go.