Categories
Featured Designers Personal Prints Projects Website

WeTheBuilders…

I decided to participate in WeTheBuilders‘ most recent project to make a large, distributed, crowd-sourced 3-D printed statue.

This latest project was a statue of Charon, the psychopomp Styx ferryman of Greek mythology, sculpted by Ryan Kittleson. This collaboratively-printed sculpture was displayed at Loveburn 2025, in Miami in February 2025 and is now back in Baltimore awaiting display in a more permanent home.

A full gallery of the assembly process and final display at the festival.

Participating in the crowd-sourced project was a great experience. I ended up printing 4 pieces for the Charon statue. They provide the .STLs (via a check-out mechanism), you provide the plastic, the printing, and shipping to them.

Some quick facts about the project:

  • The final statue was about 5 feet tall, 2.5 feet wide, and 4 feet front-to-back.
  • Approximately 40 individuals printed parts for this project.
  • The sculpture was subdivided into 260 parts using Luban.
  • Participants were encouraged to include a coin in the parts they printed, in the style of the ancient Greek tradition of burying the dead with a coin in their mouth to pay the ferryman’s toll across the river Styx.

Full credit where due: the WeTheBuilders team ran logistics, conceptualized the project and sculpture, received and assembled the parts, and transported the finished project from Baltimore to Miami and back.

I look forward to participating in future WeTheBuilders projects and would encourage you to look into participating as well. At the very least, consider a bookmark and visit the site occasionally for updates.

WeTheBuilders.com

Categories
Tech

3-D Printer Maintenance

Basic preventative maintenance will keep you printing problem-free. Periodically check and fix the following areas of your printer.

  • Vacuum up all the little pieces and parts of filament that drop off as the printer heats up, failed print debris, etc.
  • Dust your printer. Canned air will work fine. Blow out the fans, controller box.
  • Check the extruder body internals for filament crumbs, buildup. Do a cold pull of filament.
  • Clean your linear bearings and load them with grease. If possible, do this during initial printer build, or the next time you do a major overhaul.
  • Check for wiring fraying or chafing.
  • Check X, Y, Z round rods for any marring or flatspotting (indicating not enough lubrication) or other unusual wear. Do all the axes run smooth and straight?
  • If your print quality is consistently low and no settings seem to improve it: it’s probably time to change your nozzle. They are relatively easy to change.

Check your printer’s vendor’s documentation or website for specific maintenance suggestions.

Prusa i3 MK3 Regular Maintenance

Prusa Maintenance Tips

6 tips for Original Prusa i3 3D printer maintenance

Just a little preventative maintenance will help your printer succeed in the tasks you give to it.

Categories
About Us Welcome to

layer.works

layer.works is a full-service 3-D design/make/teach education, consulting, and 3-D service provider, based in Central Alabama, just north of Montgomery.

We do custom prototyping, mass production, training, troubleshooting, education, and consultation in additive- and subtractive-fabrication and manufacturing. We also do low-voltage custom, animated LED light solutions.

A small sampling of projects we’ve worked on:

  • Scale architectural models (entire building structure, furniture/cabinet installation visualization)
  • Large-scale art installations
  • 3-D models of topographical data (localized and regional)
  • Woodworking and machining alignment fixtures and jigs
  • Custom and hard-to-find automotive parts
  • Templates for painting
  • Guides for aligning and spacing assemblies
  • Angle calibration gauges
  • Custom enclosures for electronics projects
  • Decorative figurines, vases, desk organizers
  • Educational lessons for use in schools

If you have 3-D printing, 3-D design, large-format CNC (4×8 foot), or low-voltage LED lighting needs, send us an inquiry and we’ll get back to you quickly. Not sure if we can help you? Drop us a line with your needs and we’ll figure out what we can do or point you in the right direction.

We use and support Open Source hardware, software, principles, and methods whenever we can.

On Printables.Com – Our Profile

On Thingiverse – Our Profile