Creating 3D model plaques

[Night Owl Models]

For the last year I have been dedicated to learning 3D printing. I wanted to expand that capability to making parts and pieces from scratch which is pretty daunting when your new to the 3D world. If I can make the process easier for the beginners and skip some of the hard parts that's what forums are all about.

 

So I discovered while using a 3D cad program called Tinker cad www.tincercad.com that the program had a option to generate text in many ways. Here is the process to make your own custom plaques for displaying with your models.

 

To start I opened the program (after creating an account) so I can save my work. You start in a blank canvas, I added a basic shape for the plaque base drag and dropping from the right hand menu. There are lots of YouTube tutorials on how to navigate the program.

 

Next is creating text simply selecting the "TEXT" icon drag and drop from there you can customize the size, depth, angle and arc.

 

 

After creating all the text you can angle it to the base and make final adjustments. I was curious if I could import image's and convert them into a usable object after a YouTube search I discovered all that was needed was to use an online file conversion tool "online-convert.com" where I can take any .png or .jpg and convert it into a .svg or .obj file which is the preferred format for TinkerCad. So I converted my "Night Owl Models" logo from a .jpg to a .svg 

My log to convert from .jpg to .svg

 

Import your saved converted file is easy just drag and drop.

 

 

Same process here once imported you can manipulate the object.

 

 

So here is the final design I did for a helicopter model in my display case.

 

 

Now I need to export (top middle tab) this design to an .stl format my AnyCubic 3D printer will recognize and print. Ill rename and save the file to my own folder.

 

Here is the .stl file in preview windows explorer.

 

 

If your familiar with 3D printing I like to use Chitubox to import and slice my files and prepare them for 3D printing. Here I have simply opened the saved .stl file and did some minor adjustment before slicing and saving the file to a USB stick.

 

The 3D print for this file took about 1hr 25min no supports required here is the model printed in basic gray resin ill paint and detail it later.

 Thanks for reading ill add another photo of the finished plaque later. The exciting thing I found about this is your imagination is the limit here are a few more examples where I added squadron logos...now all my models will have a title and great for displays at home and hobby shows.

 

 

 

[arnobiz]

Very cool, I had no idea of Tinkercad's capabilities in this area but it looks like a winner 👍