3D Printing 03

As I said in a previous "what I wish I'd known" story, I took up 3D printing. You don't just "buy a 3D printer" by the way. Oh no... you commit to spending your free time learning thermal engineering and trying to minimise the amount of plastic waste you are responsible for.

My Mandalorian Helmets

As mentioned previously, I printed some Mandalorian helmets. At the time of writing it has been six of them in total.

The reason for this number is that every one of the first five failed in some way and I had to work out how to print a separate continuation to complete the helmet. I became determined to get just one perfect, single session helmet print to break the jinx.

This left me with plenty of scope to practice filling, sanding and painting and I'm sharing my thoughts here because there were aspects of this that I couldn't find advice on and had to experiment on my own. This was mainly to do with graphite powder and shine. Anyone looking into how to get the best finish on their Mandalorian helmet will have seen videos of the miracle that is graphite powder. A jar of that stuff, a soft buffing pad and a bit of elbow grease produces something that wouldn't look out of place on a Cylon warrior.

Unfortunately I found that the camera lies and so, in the tradition of this website, I'll lay out the work I went through in the hope that it saves someone else some time and money. I'll very briefly outline my experience of preparing a finished PLA print for final painting and then go into the graphite powder thing in more depth.

What I wish I'd known before buying a 3D printer

I bought a 3D printer all of a sudden. I didn't go through a process of wanting one and looking into the subject or anything like that. I just saw them on Amazon and thought "I remember they used to cost thousands" and next day, mine was delivered. I bought it partly because I had things in mind I could design and print (more on that later), but mostly because they are too cool not to have one.