Project IX/17

The Empire strikes back

My significant other was wondering why my first idea when playing with a 3d printer wasn't the obvious one, Han Solo in carbonite. I guess we just had different priorities in life :p

Again I bothered my colleague Nathan, during the last months of 2017 and we played with the Formlabs resin printer. Somehow I always managed to start these things in the afternoon so that the printers were left alone overnight.

Friday. Morning.

As soon as I got to work I brewed a cup of coffee and started chiseling the printout off the printer's printing plate. Let me tell you, it was turning my few remaining hairs even greyer, beating the softish resin lump off with a spatula. I shouldn't have worried that much as the violently treated piece was just the footprint of the support structure. For some curious reason the printing program (or was it the slicer?) wanted to set the actual model slanted at an angle.

First thing after detaching it the piece had to be bathed in spirits, twice. The first time it was submerged to the first tank for a good while and then removed to dry up a bit. Then it was submerged into another one for a bit again. One of those bathes was longer-lasting than the other one, but while writing this I just couldn't remember how it went. All I can say the other one was 15 mins and the other one a bit less. Maybe.

While inhaling the ethanol fumes I was admiring the details. Especially captain Solo's hands were amazing.