Toys and form1 out and about!

Projects & Prints
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Hello!

Just wanted to share one of the ways I’ve been using my form1!  My friend and I have a toy comany, Rawrz Toys, and we make handmade cast resin toys.  We start by designing in the computer, 3d print the masters, mold, cast duplicates, clean and paint them.

Previously we had been using a service to print for us. This was limiting because it was costly, and so we couldn’t iterate the design both artistically and technically (how we split up the toy for casting) as much as we wanted to.  I purchased the form1 through kickstarter, and Rawrz toys has now been using it to prototype our toys.  We have also been using it to make special "one off’ toys that we don’t mold and cast. Just clean up the print and paint it.

Once we started using the form1 in our process we started taking it along to shows where we sell our toys.  We have a demonstration board on the table near us showing the process of making Rawrz Toys, and the printer has been a great part of the process.  And it looks cool too! :)  I get a mix of people who recognize it, suspect it’s a printer but don’t recognize it, and people who have never seen a 3d printer before and it blows their mind.

Recently we were fortunate enough to get featured in Make Magazines online video series: Make Believe.  There we showed our whole process, including a part on the form1!  (updated link)

Form1 also got a shoutout at the review of the Santa Rosa Maker Faire
http://makezine.com/2013/10/19/exploding-virtual-circuits-a-giant-lego-spiders-and-more-at-the-santa-rosa-mini-maker-faire/

If you want to see more about what Rawrz Toys is up to, check us out at www.rawrztoys.com  We have a bunch of pictures of how we make them too.

Most of the small animals in these pictures are cast resin toys.  The whale is about an inch high.  The alligator shown is a early prototype, and is a form1 print that we painted up.  Accessories are a fun part of our toy line.  (previously we had donuts, small top hat, bows, and a few other things)  In these pictures are accessories that are straight from the form1 printer and painted…  Pirate hat, party hat, princess hat, robinhood hat, wonky hat, waffle, wings, princess crown, gingerbread man, candy swirl and zombie bones.  We will probably end up casting some of these down the road, but for now are just going to print up a bunch and use those.   Also, the picture that has the whale twice the size of the others is a 3d print, sanded and painted up.

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Here’s a few more pics

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Last ones!

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Wow, Ann! These are absolutely stunning – what a great process. Did all of these resin casts start out as Form 1 prints?

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These are amazing!

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In these pictures, the alligator, larger whale, and accessories are all form1 prints.   The whale, shark, octopus masters were printed before the form1 was released.   We haven’t yet molded any of the form1 prints, but are evaluating that now!

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Bought the pirate Narwal. So excited!

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These toys are so beautiful! My favorite ones are sold out though–will have to keep an eye on new Rawrz. :slight_smile:

Thank you for sharing the images and video.

G.

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Hey thanks guys!  We’re working away to try to get our store restocked!  We just finished a few holiday shows, and are running low!  We both have full time jobs too, so this is our weekend and evening project! :slight_smile:

Our shark is a bit low on fun accessories… I’m thinking I might try printing a jetpack for him this weekend!

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Pirate Narwal has arrived.

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Hehe, that’s amazing!! :slight_smile:

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Hi Ann,

Cute stuff. Thanks for sharing photos. I think I’ve got the picture, but can I confirm: these photos are all of Form 1 output which has then been painted, but you are now looking into taking the Form 1 output and making molds for higher volume castings? (Or injected molds?)

If I’m on the right track… given the cuteness of your designs, I’m guessing small children might handle them. Do you know if they eat part of it… if that’s safe? I looked at the MSDS sheets and, whew, there’s a lot to digest there. Hey, get it. A lot to digest about whether you can eat Form 1 output. Ok, never mind that. Back to the matter in hand. I also want to produce toys - something entirely different from yours in case you’re wondering - and I’m worried about committing to a machine that I can use to prototype but that I cannot use for early production, due to a material hazard. If you’ve looked into this and could share what you’ve learned, I’d be very appreciative.

In the meantime… cool!

Dev Handa

Waterloo, Ontario

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Can you take some screen shots of what these parts look like on PreForm, with supports and maybe have a side by side of those screen shots with the toys.  That would give a great deal of technical information to all of us as well!

Keep up the great printing!

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Hi Dev,

In these pictures most of the toys are NOT the direct form 1 output.  We mold and cast all of our toys out of resin.  It’s much faster and cheaper way to make duplicates. In these pictures, only the larger whale (sitting next to our regular small one), the alligator, and all of the accessories (hats, wings, etc) are from the form1 directly and painted up.

Because these toys are handmade, most of our buyers tend to be 12 years and up, and they are treated more like an art toy, or desk item.  Some younger kids to buy them, but they buy the ones that are cast out of  a safe resin.

We are currently using the form1 mainly to prototype the animals, and will always mold and cast those for final output.  (well, we might keep doing a few of those medium sized whales and leave them as prints, as a special edition thing)  We are also using it for some of the accessories, such as the hats you see in these pics, and if we decide some of those are popular enough, we will mold them as well.

So, depending on what your toys are like, you may find that printing to get duplicates is not the efficient way to go, even just starting out.  There is a lot of post process cleaning and sanding required to get a really perfect finish.  So it depends on what level you are looking for. Our toys are so round and smooth that they really need a good clean finish.  I would like to note that previously we were printing our prototypes on a $100k 3d systems machine, and they also required a lot sanding.  The resolution was better then the form1 (but for $97k more I would expect that!)  but still required a lot of cleanup.  Just some food for thought!

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Also, something happened to the video that Make Magazine had posted, and they had to remove and repost it.  Sadly that lost the 12k views we had, comments, and means all our posted links are dead!  Ahhh!

here’s the updated link:

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Hey David,

Here are a few more pics. Let me know if there is anything else you are wanting to see.

These pics are the medium whale print, and preform file.  (the photo of the painted finished toy is the gunmetal colored one next to the smaller purple one in first post) I think next time I print I will use less supports on the model.  Also, is a pic of the preform platform with quite a few of the accessories on it.  I seem to only have blurry ones of the actual raw print so not really worth posting.   Haha, the accessories preform file looks a bit chaotic.  I just kind of threw them all around the the platform. :)    But I wasn’t trying to fill the build tray completely, I just wanted a few of everything.

I also included a render of what the whale 3d model looks like.  You can see we designed pegs so the whole thing and register and glue together.  The different pieces also make it much easier to cast in different colors.

Here’s a link with a bunch of pics showing the process, 3d, print, mold, cast, paint, etc if you want to see more.  The prints you see there being molded were done before the form1 printer came out, and were printed on a 3d systems machine.  (and we primered and sanded them up)

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Very Nice Ann,

Were you getting any red in your preform setups?

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Ann: I have several questions if you don’t mind :slight_smile:

  1. Your building plateform with your print still attached on it is clean of liquid resin. Are you cleaning the plateform and the prints still attached at the same time??

  2. Are you printing at 25 microns or 50 microns is enough?

  3. Can you provide some advises to do good sanding? Right now, I’m using sanding paper and sometime a dremel, but I’m not pleased with the dremel results, I guess I didn’t find the good sanding head…

  4. For your mold creation can you provide some advises? In terms of material in fact. I would like to test that myself :slight_smile:

Thank you and feel free to post more of your creations, they are awesome :slight_smile:

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Hi again Ann!

Wow, thanks so very much for the detailed reply to my questions (a couple of curious people ago). You’ve given me a ton to think about. The pieces I plan to make are, for lack of a better analogy, kind of like lego (or ‘legos’ as Americans like to say). The key thing is, they need to ‘snap’ together and hold. I’ve wondered if the resin pieces or FFF would be rigid, dimensionally-reliable enough and so on to make it work, without an incredible amount of post processing. Your pieces are beautiful art, so you can get the price back to justify the post processing (although I don’t need to paint). If I need to sell, say, 40 pieces in a set… you see my dilemma.

I was originally thinking the pieces would come out like those model airplanes, with the post-processing done by the user who snaps the pieces from the matrix and files or cuts off the little bits holding them into the matrix. I think those models are injection molded, but I guess resin is more or less the same general idea.

So, if I was to have a single additional question, it might be: before settling on resin cast moldings, did you investigate having a third party produce the final pieces with injection molding or (insert word for all processes in the resin casting and injection molding ilk).

Thanks a bunch! I love the whimsy of your pieces.

Warmly,

Dev

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Hey Thomas

1. Your building plateform with your print still attached on it is clean of liquid resin. Are you cleaning the plateform and the prints still attached at the same time??

Oh, good eye!  In this case, these whales that I have printed are for demo when I go to shows selling the toys.    We like to have the various stages of the process to show people.  So, these parts have been removed and cleaned, and then stuck back on for demo purposes. I don’t usually print at the actual show because we don’t have power, and it’s just a whole layer of mess to travel with the resin that I don’t want to deal with. :slight_smile:

2. Are you printing at 25 microns or 50 microns is enough?

For most things I’ve been printing I use 50 microns.  The medium whale in pictures above is 50 microns.  For the small accessories I printed at 25 microns.  I did one at 50 but felt that some of the fine detail on the wings was a bit soft.  It did look more crisp at 25 microns.

3. Can you provide some advises to do good sanding? Right now, I’m using sanding paper and sometime a dremel, but I’m not pleased with the dremel results, I guess I didn’t find the good sanding head…

For sanding I use sand paper and sometimes tiny files. I don’t like dremels because in my case my prints usually have detail that I want to have more control over. I usually clip off any supports as best I can with small clippers, and use the file if there is one someplace tricky.  Then I primer the print with a light and thin coat of primer.  Using a primer that is for miniatures or small items is ideal because it sprays on thinner and will not fill in details as much.  Then I use a 600 grit sandpaper to smooth over the model.  (i will use 400 in an area with a big issue if needed)  The primer will wear off in sections, but is nice because it also levels sections a little so that less sanding is needed.  It sort of averages it out… if that makes sense.  Sometimes I’ll hit it with 1000grit sandpaper at the end if i think it needs it.

4. For your mold creation can you provide some advises? In terms of material in fact. I would like to test that myself :slight_smile:

We use smooth-on brand silicone at the moment for the molds.  We prefer to use the silicone type sorta-clear because it is somewhat clear and allows us to cut open the mold more easily and also it is a bit stronger and we get more castings out of it.  However, it is also more expensive.  If you are wanting to get into mold and casting I would suggest going to a local art store and picking up a starter kit.  It includes silicone and resin and instructions on how to do it, all for pretty cheap.  That way you can see if you want to do it.  Just be aware that creating molds and casting is pretty toxic, so you will need a properly ventilated area, along with mask, and gloves.

Here’s an example of the starter kit http://www.dickblick.com/products/smooth-on-starter-kits/?clickTracking=true&wmcp=google&wmcid=items&wmckw=34106-1009&CAWELAID=520010530000017124&catargetid=520010530000188424&cadevice={device}&gclid=CPSnlMbBk7wCFZRsfgoddngAIA