Adventures in 3D Printing - migration post (29th May 2017)

Amongst the (many, many) things I have been printing for Shadow War: Armageddon are the Gothic Sci-Fi Pipeline pieces that I picked up as part of a Kickstarter by Printable Scenery. The level of detail is awesome and fits right in with the Ad-Mech skull motifs on Games Workshop's Promethium Refinery kit - part of which can be seen in the background.

These were all printed on the Cetus in PLA at 0.2mm/13% infill.

The pieces will be joined by pipes (duh!) but rather than print the pipework, I opted to use some PVC piping - as used in plumbing.

There are a ring of rivets on the back edges of the pieces and so I looked for pipe that had a diameter less than those - anything less than 40mm in fact. I found a 32mm one that meant it would definitely fit and leave room any tolerance issues. If you're in the UK, I used Wickes Black Solvent Weld pipe and a 1.5m length of it cost me £1.49. That should be way more than I'm going to need but it's always better to have spare, just in case.

Anyways, I was pondering on ways to attach the pieces to the pipe sections but I knew that I didn't just want to glue them since they would need to come apart for easy storage. I was in the process of measuring the internal diameter of the pipe so that I could print a semicircular 'lug' and glue that to the piece and then just rest the pipe on it, when the battery in my digital callipers gave out. A most fortunate event as it turned out...

A friend of mine called in to see me just as I was dismantling the callipers to get access to the battery and when I explained what I was doing he came up with a rather brilliant idea - namely the use of circular 'floor protectors'. He happens to work in a store where they sell such things and offered to pick some up for me. They come with an adhesive backing and so you just peel them off and stick them on. A word of advice though, the ones I got were super grabby so if you don't dry fit them first and mark around them you could end up with wonky pipework. The pipe and pads are in the image below. If you're in the UK, the pads are from Wilkinsons and are called 'Foam Round Floor Protectors'. The pack of 18 cost £1. Again, more than enough.

As an added bonus, if you don't attach a pipe you can still paint the pad so that it looks like a mesh grill. Thanks Vontravelle, smart idea!