netfrost

I find sanding petg or pla with anything grittier damages the print. You dont want to take too much off... I let the filler primer and bondo glazing putty do the work.

So started sanding the chest pieces with 220 grit on my mouse sander. I tend to do small passes, not to over heat the plastic, and to give it time to rest so that not too much of the filament rips out. A good tip for that is to make sure you wipe the part you're sanding between passes with a lint free rag, this way nothing gets caught and rips off other plastic As I got to the centre chest piece, I noticed something I hadn't seen on the piece originally... Seems the printer slipped as it was printing as there was a huge offset going from the neck to the bottom. So I started sanding and sanding (actually didn't listen to my own steps at one point and ripped some plastic out)... I got it as smooth as I could, but I'm still not happy with it. Guess I'll keep it as a test piece and reprint it when my filament order arrives on Monday. I also had forgotten to show an other successful ABS print for my E-22.

The best is also the worst and I actually advise against ever using it as the fumes have been known to be deadly. But any paint thinner with Dichloromethane in it will chemically bond the plastics, kind of like Acetone does to ABS. I avoid it... I've heard Loctite 401 is fantastic on both PETG and PLA. I typically use Gorilla Gel Glue, with an accelerator to get the pieces stuck quikly and then reinforce the back of it with JB Weld.

SO I ordered tons more filament. (might of gone overboard a bit). In the mean time I've been playing around with old spools and managed to get one of the hand plates done. Still had a bit left on a few more spools so I did the other At this point I really didn't have enough left without swapping spools every few hours. But I did have a few spools of ABS. My main printer is in the basement It doesn't have an enclosure It can be drafty down there. I've never had a successful print in ABS... until now... I only did a few small pieces of the e-22 cause I didn't want to press my luck.

I'm in Canada and tend to use filaments.ca. I've ordered from them so much that I tend to always get a discount and get it next day. However right now it's just getting the funds as I had to replace several windows in the house 😕

As I mentioned previously, I wanted to reprint the right chest piece. I thought I had just enough filament and started the print. Noticed halfway through the day that it was doing the same odd thing. Almost like it wasn't adhering to the bed. Went home at lunch and stopped it. I re-sliced the file and tried it again. When I got home after work, same issue. I sat down and noticed it wasn't actually fully flush on the bed. Moved it and started it again. Now at this point I wasn't sure I had enough filament left on that spool. But what ever. This morning before heading in to work, I took a look and there was maybe half a meter left of filament on that spool and it wasn't done. I paused it and replaced it with an other spool that had a bit left. Success! I just logged in and took a look and the piece is done. Now I'll start assembling as I wait for payday to order more filament. I am happy though!

More boxes and a thermal detonator

Didn't get a chance to start glueing, priming and sanding due to orders and missions from the Grand Moff... though I did get a chance to print a few more pieces before. Now I'm running dangerously low on filament and probably won't be able to order some till next weekend. Silly me, I started printing the rest of the belt boxes with the remaining filament instead of reprinting the upper right chest piece. As I was dry fitting pieces last night, I realized it's way too warped to actually work with.

So for these, I'm printing with these settings: Primary Layer Height 0.25mm Top Layers: 6 Bottom Layers: 5 Outline/Perimeter Shells: 6 Infill: rectilinear at 10% It's a bit of over kill but I like to be safe for sanding.

Chest is coming along. By the time I get home tonight, all the chest pieces should be printed. Debating starting the back or belt next. But I figure with rain forecasted for the entire weekend, I may spend a few hours in the garage glazing and sanding the chest.

So as I was cleaning up my gaming room/printer room/storage room, I found a bin full of printed parts from last year. Looks like a bunch of v1 chest pieces... now to remember how they go... Also in an unrelated note... I found a DLT-44 I had started printing for my Crewman/Reserve Pilot

So after the forearm failure... I figured, why reprint it? So I printed the piece that didn't fit. I'll just glue it and secure it with some ABS strips on the inside and bondo the seam. I then printed the centre of the chest piece. Next up was the right side of the chest... I had to print it with supports and things looked ok But when I took it off the printer, I realized that the bed must of been a bit too hot (saw the same problems as to when I made my BB8) Plus, with a raft to help hold the supports... it just got wonky Since I figure I can probably fix this, I then went on to the left side... but with no raft... the supports failed and the whole thing ended up looking like the spaghetti monster. Now I have to take a few days off from it as my printers are busy doing a commission for friend.

@Bowfanny I'm debating between grunt and captain at this point, exactly because it's just a different paint job. AS for v1 vs v2 I started with v1 last year when I first started... I've since switched to v2 for the chest (which as I mentioned I've had problems with). Hope to have more pics tonight.

Thanks. I get you on wanting a crisp print. My upper right side chest piece printed oddly... I think the bed was too hot and it ended up warping a bit. Not to mention I had a raft and it kinda melded with the piece. I'll post some pics tonight. I thought of salvaging it and started printing the left side (and the supports collapsed) Now I'm just going to reprint both. As for the forearm, I've printed the piece that didn't fit and will be attaching the two as soon as I have a few minutes. Thanks! So far everything was the perfect scale for me (6' 240lbs) , though the forearms seem a bit on the big side, but I'll reserve judgement on them until I get the shirt.

As I'm printing the bit missing on the forearm. I figured I'd post what arrived for me. I have coworkers in the Czech Republic who were able to find it in a army surplus store.

And today I was printing the first forearm... a gorgeous piece. Set it up in Simplify3d, exported it to the printer through Octoprint. Let it run for about 27 hours. When I came home tonight, I went down to check on the printers... and it looked amazing. I come back upstairs to look at the Octoprint interface... still 4 hours to go? Really?? It looked like it was pretty much at the top on the Z axis... Look at the file... oh crap! the forearm is 259mm... my print space in Z is 250mm... Stop the print... try to remove it from the bed... it's jammed in there between the bed and the extruder... *sigh* Simplify3D will tell you when a piece is bigger than your print bed in the X or Y... but evidently not in the Z So now, I'll have to slice it in half and glue it/bondo it etc... Any doodle... it's still a nice forearm that could be used for a Mando or something.

After getting the helmet mostly ready, I started printing the ab plate Ended up having to take a break, as I ran out filament. Once I got more, I continued the ab Then started assembling it. Still need to sand and prime it.

Just because one can never have too many projects (haha) I decided to start a Shoretrooper as well. Preferring to do things on my own, I found the files at http://www.shoretrooper.co.uk/ and thought why not. I started off by grabbing the files and got my Lulbotz Taz 5 going. I decided to begin with the helmet. That way, if I got bored or decided to stop, I at least had the helmet that I could display As I I printed away, things were going well until I reached this part. As you can see, one didn't print properly. Oh well, failures are always part of the 3d printing world. I reprinted the piece and continued on. Eventually I had all the helmet pieces printed, so I started test fitting before I started gluing them together. Then came the sanding and priming.