When we first started dating with my wife 25 years ago, I made her a wood carved replica of my Ibanez RG custom i was playing back then (Btw I still have it). Last year she dropped it into sever and could not retrieve. She has been asking me to carve another one since then but neither my eyes nor my hands are sharp enough for such a detailed work anymore. But Hey! I have a P1S Combo now. I can 3D print one.
I need 6 colors but have to settle with 4. I managed to make a very realistic model of my guitar. It will be 120mm from end of body to end of headstock. To make it sun and heat resistant I will print it with PETG and 0.2 nozzle. I printed a few single color tests with PLA pro. In order to save print time and flushed filament I need to place it on bed on his back. But this creates a lot of nasty overhangs and bambu studio creates almost a raft like support underneath it. I tried different support settings in 3 test prints. When I remove them they leave a lot of splinter like residue especially on the back of the fretboard. The fretboard is so thin that I do not want to risk breaking it with sanding roughly. I thought placing it upright might resolve the issue but tanks to the nasty curves and pieces of guitars everything covered with support. Also the time and filament waste increase insanely. 5 hrs 43 min vs 72 hour 13 min, and 89 gr vs 1014 gr for a 9 gr key chain. When in upright filament has to change 5 times 1 for support 4 for body colors from first to last layer. Which is the reason of this increase. While on his back, It will print the first half with only one color and will need to do 4 color changes for only 30 layers or so. Top layers will only need two colors.
Can you please recommend settings that i can try, which can make separation easier and clean. Support filament would be great but there is no room left in AMS.
It would be very helpful, if you can post a photo of the model.
Without it, it is very hard to recommend something. However: I would go for manual support drawing, which gives quite you more flexibility.
I was not aware that ı was allowed to send pictures as a new comer. Many forums do not. Here below. This one is the best of three. You can see the the tiger like stripes left by supports on the body and splinters on the head stock. Supports were so fused that two of the tuning pegs were broken too.
Try to place it vertically (so bottom of the guitar is the only connection to the print plate). Add some manual support here if required or at least some brim to avoid falling off. Beside of the tuner I don’t see any further troubles for a perfect clean print. I would remove the tuner out of the model and print them extra. So you maybe can even turn them.
I printed it as seen in first two pics, lying on its back. Removing pegs will not be feasible as PETG famously does not to except gluing. Also they are too tiny for my hands to do it right.
I tried to slicing it with it is sitting upright t at 20 and 30 degree angles and only put a strong manual support at the very bottom to avoid tumbling. The back indeed became support free but the flushed filament and duration are very similar to being upright. And there may be risk of sagging due to PETG.
There is water-soluble support available that lets you reduce the gap between model and support to nothing for best quality on part surfaces that face the support.
I haven’t used it yet to give any more details but there have been discussions here about it and how it works for people.
Do you mean HIPS? It is too expensive for a single time print of a key chain. I am not into colorful prints or small items like this. I am more of a large functional parts guy. There is a trick I learnt from wood workers many years ago. If you want to justify your expenses to your wife make some things useful to her with it. She will forgive you much easily. This is that project.
A thought. Since it is a keychain, you will want it to be sturdy. Extrude the neck all the way to the build surface. It will be unrealistically thick, but if will print easily - AND be sturdy as a keychain! You could even draft the extrusion so that there is an easy-printing overhang… that would make it look better from above.
That’s an incredible project, and it’s awesome how you’re finding a modern way to recreate such a meaningful gift for your wife! It sounds like a delicate balance between support placement and minimizing post-processing challenges. For cleaner support removal, you might try increasing the Z distance for support separation in your slicer settings—this can make supports easier to remove without leaving splinters. Additionally, adjusting the support density to a lower percentage and experimenting with tree supports could provide better results while reducing material waste and print time.
