Vertebral Space Elevator Station Free 3D print model

This is a new sculpture that I'm working on. It's my vision of a space elevator station with the design based loosely on a human spinal cord. It's designed to hang by mono-filament from fixtures designed into the top section. This is a monster sized sculpture and the final assembled object will be about 50(127cm) high and about 30 (76cm) across. I design my work to be printable on consumer-grade printers so the different sections of the station are broken up into smaller printable parts and should not require any raft or support. The different STLs are all print ready but I am still in the process of actually getting them all printed. I'm currently using the Replicator 1 to print the parts and it's taking months. The sculpture will be going into a show in LA this summer so it's a good thing I'm almost done!

My other sculptures were designed in Blender, but I learned Solidworks for this one because I needed more precision for the various parts. When I ship the sculpture to California, it will need to be shipped in two pieces to avoid breakage so I've design the lower section, the vertebrae, to be detachable-- sort of like the saucer of the Enterprise! It has a locking mechanism that twists into place. Also, I'm using PLA to print it because there's just too much warping on full-size parts with ABS.

Note: I've included an image of the 1/4 scale printed sculpture as well as an in-progress image of the parts that I've already assembled on the big guy.

PRINTING INSTRUCTIONS

These parts are scaled for a Makerbot Replicator so will need to be resized if your build platform is smaller

Part NameNumber of Copies to PrintVert01 through Vert06 1Engines01 1Engines02 1Layer1Connector 1Layer01 2Layer02 4Layer 3 Center 1Layer 3 13DishSection 12AntennaTop 1AntennaLower 2Sacrum 1

For assembly, I'm using ABS slurry to glue the parts together and fill any gaps or ledges created between parts. Even with PLA, the printing process isn't going to be free of warping and inconsistency. Now you might be asking, why are you using ABS when the structure is PLA? Well, the bond is good enough if I sand the two faces to be joined(essentially scoring the surface if you've ever used ceramics), and the ABS can easily be sanded once dry. Since the PLA is much harder, I can smooth out areas and joins without having to worry about destroying the actual form of the object.

Total material cost is a bit hard to judge since there have been more than a few fails caused by filament jams. I would say that I've gone through about 10 spools of PLA. For final finishing, I plan on using Krylon Fusion for Plastic spray paint because it will adhere to PLA without the need for sanding or primer layer. I'm going to use a black base coat followed by a grey top coat to give the whole structure a bit of a patina effect. Update (July 10)- finished the sculpture and uploaded photos! Ended up just going with a satin black paint job since I liked the stealthy look it gave it.