February 11, 2022: Now I'm 3D Printing (Part 7)

The big question this week was: what would "crunch" production look like? I tried Monday and Tuesday to run the printer as many times as I could. I wanted to see what I could expect, and we need a LOT of crabmen for FnordCon. (How many is a lot? Well, one for each attendee and one for everybody who supports the FnordCon Swag campaign on IndieGoGo. So it'll be well over 300.)

I would have liked to show you a whole HORDE of crabmen, but (a) they're not all done yet, and (b) most of them are not cleaned up; they still have their supports. So feast your eyes on the example to the right. That bad boy comes in eight poses, in varying sizes. And there might be a horde photo later.

Anyway; it proves to be possible, without too much pain, to run the printer five times a day. Each run of the crabmen produces eight figures, one of each pose. It takes the printer a couple of hours to finish. Then there's time required for washing, drying, and curing, but that happens while the printer is doing the next run. So it is doable, and best of all, I had zero failed figures during the crunch.

-- Steve Jackson