Anbu Black Ops
Anbu Black Ops
Printing the Kakashi Anbu mask by Killonious, Thingiverse
My nephew recently visited for the holidays, and in an effort to lure him away from the iPad that seemed to be glued to his face, I introduced him to my 3D printer which was at the time busy whirring away on a print. At first glance he was hooked, which then lead to took a trip to Thingiverse hunting for the perfect printing project that he could help out with, and take home to remember the experience. The hunt through Thingiverse was extensive spanning from Dragon Balls and Pokemon figures, to star wars replicas, however he finally settled on a mask warn by Kakashi Hatake from the anime Naruto.
Having downloaded the files, we measured the width of his face to compare to the included overall dimensions of the print, and determined that the mask would need to be scaled to 95% of the original file in PrusaSlicer. This was perfect, as I’m not sure if the print would fit on the build surface at 100% scale. We then applied a layer height of .15 mm, selected PLA as our material and leaving the remaining settings at the presets, we proceeded to fire up the Prusa i3 MK3. It wasn’t long however before we found ourselves scratching our heads and having to take a second and third attempt at the print.
Slicing & Print Setup
Several problems lead to re-slicing and re-printing the part twice while working with the Killonious .stl file from Thingiverse, including an uneven/non-flat print surface, unidentified overhangs in PrusaSlicer as well as well as detected overhangs. The first layer produced overhangs spanning about 1/4 inch from layer to layer at a layer height of .15mm. This resulted in the whole print peeling away from the build surface threatening to grab hold of the hotend and form a massive blob of plastic.
My initial attempt to fix the print to the build surface was to add lots of support enforcers around the rim of the mask, but this too failed on my next attempt to print, and took quite a bit of time to insert and place enough support enforcers to support the mask. It turns out however that the solution was to simply cut about 1.45mm off of the back of the mask to make a new, flat surface to print from.
With my third print about 15 hours underway, I discovered that PrusaSlicer failed to identify two portions of the mask, near the corners of the mouth, that were completely unsupported. This was easily fixed with support enforcers, but loosing 15 hours out of a 21 hour print certainly hurt!
Not wanting to risk another day and more material on potentially unsupported material, I added support enforcers vertically along the center of the mask, under the identified unsupported region of the ears, as well as the corners of the mouth. I briefly considered using the auto generated support material, however it seemed that PrusaSlicer interpreted all of the underside of the mask as requiring support material, and I feared the effects this could have on surface finish inside the mask. As it was, the regions that were supported exhibited quite a bit of warping, requiring heavy sanding once the print was finished.
Layer height was set to .15 mm in an effort to reduce time sanding the print in preparation to be painted, which was certainly the cause of the 21 hour print time. If I were to do it again, I think I would consider varying the layer height from .25 mm where the mask rises roughly vertically from the print bed, to .15 mm and then .07 mm near the last few layers of the print to reduce sanding.
Post Printing
Printed at a layer height of .15 mm, the surface of the print was relatively smooth, however conventional internet wisdom repetedly stated that a print should be sanded prior to painting, so sand it I did! I used 220 grit sandpaper, sanding against the grain until all layer lines became obscured and hard to identify. well, I should say almost all, as the bridge of the nose, and the forehead continued to show layer lines regardless of how thoroughly they were sanded. It is these regions that led me to wish that portions of the mask were printed at a .07 layer height to support sanding and then painting.
I then washed the print under water with a brush to remove any PLA dust produced by sanding. Once dry I wiped the surface down with rubbing alcohol to remove any oils left behind by my fingers, or the PLA (I’ve read that it is oily, and can repel paint). I then applied two thick coats of Krylon ColorMaxx white indoor-outdoor primer spray paint, followed by sanding with 800 grit sandpaper between each coat. For the accented region around the eyes, whiskers and mouth, I used a metallic acrylic paint that we had lying around. The print was then painted with clear Krylon colorMaxx indor-outdoor spray paint so that it could be washed off should it become dirty during play.
Anbu Mask Files
- If your interested in printing your own mask, the following link will take you to the Thingiverse page for Killonious’ Kakashi Anbu Mask .stl files
- I recommend printing in either PLA if your considering painting the mask
- Sand printed surface with 200 grit sandpaper, and painted surface with 800 grit sandpaper.
- Print time should come in at about 21 hours at .15 mm layer height. Possible to reduce print time by varying layer heights