Building a doll from scratch

BigBurrito · Post by **BigBurrito** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 5:54 pm

Like the hand and finger joints,really good work. What kind of rubber are you going to use for the skin?, and maybe in the future i like to have you print those hand for me, will pay shipping, and the price for your work. Can't afford a printer yet, but plan on getting one. Being on fixed retirement income sucks, all the time, little on scratch.

samara78 · Post by **samara78** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 6:43 pm

How was i not following this thread. Great stuff.

MIKE238 · Post by **MIKE238** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 7:08 pm

Heh, yeah, forgot to fill that cavity!

MIKE238 · Post by **MIKE238** » Fri Nov 18, 2016 7:16 pm

Hey BigBurrito. Yeah no problem at all. When I get all the parts printed and I can then print hands for you if you still want them. When we get to that point I'll let you know the price. It takes about 14 hours to print each hand.

I plan to use platinum cured silicone for the doll as it is the most stable and durable material for this project. I would actually prefer to use TPE but that's a whole different ballgame and requires specialized equipment, something I could never have.

Later!

r363b · Post by **r363b** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 8:46 am

FIY .. http://www.frightprops.com/catalog/prod ... tegory/15/
"Talking Skulls have realistic mouth, eye, and optional head turn movement"

BigBurrito · Post by **BigBurrito** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 12:07 pm

I'm looking into liquid latex to do the body parts, maybe even the head, depends how streachy it is. I want the mouth to open real wide, and my current face is made from melting TPE(UR3) and pouring into a mold i made from a mannequin head, but it's a pain in the ass to work with, cuz it likes to bubble on the pour. Been also looking into Ecoflex 10 or 20, but it's ridiculous in price. Gonna order latex in a small amount to test and see, and will post my results. Seems latex is easy to work with, even the face i made works really well, making TPE, i buy a cheap fleshlight, melt it down (stinks by the way) put my mold in the freezer to reduce bubbles, and the face is almost blemish free, but i want to mold with the skull in the mold for better comformity, but the heat from the TPE would melt the skull, a big mess. If any of you worked with latex, let me know. Thanks from the BigBurrito.

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 12:29 pm

Hey Mike, fantastic stuff so far!

That tall leg print looks great. Looks like you've got your printer working well.
BTW, do you have a heated bed on your gmax?
I think they have one for it now that has dual zone heating.

MIKE238 · Post by **MIKE238** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 3:16 pm

Hi Mann, (hope you don't mind the abbreviation!)

Hey thanks for the kind words. I'm really quite pleased by the performance of the printer. It wasn't quite so easy at first but I discovered that to get the best quality you have to use the right software. I'm not here to make comparisons between software for 3D printing but the Simplify3D I'm using now has been superb. When I first printed the hands (in the image on page 1) I was having all kinds of problems with a pretty rough surface which would have meant I would have had to do a lot of sanding to get a good result (I won't mention that software as I don't want to give them a bad rap). Yet on some other items, like the jaw and teeth in the image above, it did quite well. But I decided to look for software comparisons on the web and found that Simpify3D seemed to get the highest marks for quality. It was not a free download, though, but the $149 cost turned out to be really well worth the money and the hands and other parts printed beautifully with it, as you can see. I would highly recommend it.

As for a heated bed, no, I don't have one just yet. It's a bit expensive but perhaps I'll get one in the future. Right now I'm using a PLA/PHA blend from ColorFabb and it's really great to work with but it doesn't work well with a heated bed, apparently. So I ordered blue tape from a 3D supplier and I hope it will work better. I've been having adhesion problems lately, even with PLA and I think its because the bed is colder now than when I first started using it a couple of months ago when the ambient temps were higher and made adhesion better on the bed. I keep my house at 63 degrees inside during colder weather (to save on heating expenses) and I think that's what has caused adhesion problems now. And I've had to hold off printing for awhile until I get the blue tape. It should work and I'll be back at it.

Hope to have more pics soon and I'll keep you posted!

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 3:51 pm

Sounds good Mike. It will be cool to follow your progress!

I use ABS only with my printer, so I don't have much experience with PLA materials.
Afinia uses a perforated FR4 board for the printing surface which works extremely well for anchoring the ABS prints, but I haven't tried it with PLA yet.

BTW you can just call me MF, it's even shorter!

MIKE238 · Post by **MIKE238** » Sat Nov 19, 2016 11:43 pm

Hey MF, you've piqued my interest about the perforated FR4 board for the printing surface - can you tell me where to go on the web to take a look? I'm always looking for the best surface for 3D printing and I'd like to see the FR4 board. And thanks!

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Sun Nov 20, 2016 12:10 am

I've never really looked for the stuff in it's raw form so I'm not sure where the best place would be to look.
Here's a slightly dated thread on the soliforum about it...
http://www.soliforum.com/topic/10419/re ... erf-board/

Here's the FR4 board referenced in that thread. The holes are spaced a little farther apart than the one that Afinia uses.
http://www.digikey.com/product-detail/e ... -ND/480487

One note is that you would definitely want to use a raft when printing with the perf board.

samara78 · Post by **samara78** » Sun Nov 20, 2016 5:33 am

Pure genius

MIKE238 · Post by **MIKE238** » Sat Nov 26, 2016 12:20 am

Here are both arms completed now, except, of course, all the smoothing I will have to do on all parts of the doll. But I'll worry about that later as I want to get all the pieces printed. I'm at a bit of a standstill right now as my printer isn't able to read the SD card. I had this problem before but I hope to get it fixed soon. I could run it from an external computer but it would be too much of a pain as there are a lot of firmware stuff I would need to install in the printer and I don't want to make mistakes while trying to do it. Will keep you posted.

MIKE238 · Post by **MIKE238** » Sat Nov 26, 2016 12:24 am

Oh, hey, MF, sorry I didn't respond sooner as I've been so busy with other stuff. I've done some probing about adhesion to the build plate problems. I need to amp up the temperature of the hotend so the filament will adhere better plus I will be using rafts from now on. That should help.