3D printing on fabric? I might have lost it, because I have this printer less than half a year and I am already doing weird stuff. But with reason! I saw this technique and immediately thought of Synchronicity Miku. She is part dragon and has scales on her body. 3D printing those would give them a nice volume. And I have an older printer, so if I ruin it, it ain’t your brand new one!
And boy, did I ruin my printer. Nothing unfixable, just baby’s first nozzle blockage. So I wanna share some tips on how you can print on fabric without the struggle:
- Use tule fabric to print on! It is plastic and it has holes, so the filament will enscapsulate it perfectly. The holes also make it easy to attach your print to fabric with needle and thread.
- Have painter’s tape ready. I tried various kinds of tape to see which had the best temporary adhesion to the head bed. Painter’s tape was the big winner.
- Do a test print first without tule and watch it closely. Count the layers till the infill starts and write that down. For the dragon scales it was 3 layers. Why do you want to know this? So you can pause the print at that point and place the tule at that point.
- Your fabric doesn’t have to be extremely taut when printing on it. Do make sure it has no wrinkles that can get in the way of the nozzle. If your fabric moves it is over. (Like with machine embroidery! I swear, those machines have a lot in common, haha!)
Why did I run into issues? I let the machine be in “pause print” mode for too long and that blocked the nozzle. And well, the brittle old filament I have used to test this technique also wasn’t a star. I had so many breakages… But I now have glow in the dark dragon scales for my Synchronicity Miku cosplay. If you want to use the same file as I did, you can find it on Cults 3D for free. MissDeliana was so kind to make it available at no cost and I can say it prints really well, even on my Ultimaker 2.
If you have any additions to this tutorial with tips you’ve found, let me know!
Good luck with trying a new skill! <3
Amirine