I am building a star Trek TOS Communicator for the Museum of Science Fiction here in DC. I am bringing it to Escape Velocity next week. What do you think?
Very nice, you using one of the models off of Thingiverse, or your own?
This one is the model on Adafruit. Going to try to add some electronics.
This one then:
Yeah I’ve had that on my list for some time, very nice model.
I am printing on a multiple printers at ‘high’ quality. I will hit the thing with XTC3D to get a perfect finish before painting. Can’t wait!
I’ve really been liking XTC-3D, especially on complex shapes like that one where manual sanding all the little details would be a pain.
I like to sand the part with 120 - 150 grit paper to knock down the really high spots, coat with XTC-3D, sand it again at 200 grit, coat with a high build spray primer, and finally do finish wet sanding at 400 grit (maybe go as high as 800 depending on how fine a finish I’m looking for).
The XTC docs claim you can go from printed part to painting with just the XTC itself, but I found that to be a bit misleading. Maybe if you’re willing (or have the time) to do 2 or 3 coats of XTC, but otherwise I’ve found you still need to do some sanding and filling to really get that perfect look.
I have been hitting it with 2 or 3 coats and then priming and painting and getting some real nice mirror finishes
You letting XTC dry naturally or using heat to speed it up?
The ~24 hour dry time (and to a degree, the cost of the XTC itself) has kept me from doing multiple coats.
Yeah, that’s what I end up doing.
I’d like to see the final piece. Where will you have it? I’ll be at the ARISS table in the NASA exhibit area most of the weekend.
I will probably take it to Greg assuming it’s all done
Very nice :), I always wanted one 
Now if I only can get the little parts to print right…S3D hates them with the Da Vinci, as does the XYZ software. Next up Repetier and Cura…