Based in Glasgow, Scotland, ST3P3D is a clear example of a lean start-up: using desktop based 3D printers they leverage their knowledge of 3D printing and design talent – more so than on any financial investments – to accomplish impressive feats. When companies such as STEP3D are asked by an artist collective to 3D print a life size replica of a horse’s head, well, they just cannot refuse.
The head was “delivered” as a 3D scan of the horse’s head on the statue of Croatian Ban and war hero Ban Josip Jelačić. Fokus Grupa, the artist collective based in Rijeka, had collected the 3D scan data. But that was only the very first part of the adventure.
How would you 3D print a one meter tall, 60 cm wide horse’s head on a 3D printer with a maximum build volume of 28.5 x 15.3 x 15.5 cm? Well, if you have enough 3D graphic skills the first thing you need to do is fix the mesh data from the scan. The quality of it was actually quite high, nevertheless many adjustments still needed to be made to make sure the file had no imperfections or holes. These complexities grew as the scan had to be divided into many parts measuring no more than 20 mm less than the length of each printer axis.
These added up to 124 parts, ranging from half hour build using 6 grams of material to 15 hour builds printing 366 grams of material. With a large SLS industrial 3D printer you could load them up together, trying to fill the plate as much as possible. With desktop FFF 3D printers what it takes is some quality optimization scheduling to best manage print space and times.
To make sure all blocks could be perfectly assembled the ST3P3D team numbered all the pieces and then taped them together, before moving on to binding them with epoxy and filling the gaps with a general purpose, quick drying and easy to sand filler.
The final result is impressive, to say the least. Totalling 14 Kg of plastic (3.5 miles of filament) and half a Kg of epoxy resin the horse’s head was exhibited at the Transmission gallery in Glasgow. It will probably continue to be displayed as a piece of art and also as a demonstrative showcase of what can be achieved with a low cost 3D printer through good organizational and design skills. The Godfather director Francis Ford Coppola would certainly have known what else to do with it!
