Sorting a Sorting Hat

Friends from Brooklyn dropped by for a morning during the Labor Day long weekend. Their kids had seen, and mostly worked with, a 3D printer at a Maker Space in Brooklyn, but most of the time that printer is swarmed with users (kids and adults alike). So the kids and I sat down and planned out a few interesting things to print, that would finish quick enough to head home with them.

This was a series of fast prints of a Harry Potter Sorting Hat. The original model was fairly large, at 10cm to a side, which would take too long to print. So we started small and scaled up; the 25% original model scale took 13 minutes, while a 50% scale with no supports took 40 minutes. The final 50% scale version was made with supports, but wasn’t ready by the time everyone left for lunch. Interesting to discover that the adding in support structures increased the overall print time by 25%.

 

 

Print 1

A 25% scaled print of the original Sorting Hat model, with no support structures, on Fast Print settings. Not bad quality for a draft/fast print, but tiny.

 

Print 2

A 50% scale print of the original Sorting Hat, to make it decently bigger than the 25% print. Again, not bad quality given the settings, but noticable sagging/delamination on the tip of the hat, which hangs horizontally.

 

Print 3

Another 50% scale print, at the same print quality as Print #2, but this time with support structures printed onto the model.

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