Brutus Buckeye Candy Ornament

A Christmas ornament for Ohio State fans: Brutus Buckeye's head with his face in color and a Santa hat with the Block O. The head is hollow and holds about 170 ml of candy. Unscrew the cap, swing the halves open on the bottom hinge, fill it, close it and screw the cap back on.

The two head halves print flat as a thin colored mesh, then you soften them with a hair dryer and press them into shape over the printed forming mold. No supports and no painting: the face colors are part of the flat print.

Details

• Head: about 84 x 76 mm, 70 mm deep; about 137 mm tall with the hat

• Ornament: 4 colors (white, black, brown, beige), PLA

• Santa hat: 2 colors (red, white), PLA, fuzzy skin on the band and pompom

• Forming mold: PETG, reusable

• Hangs from a ribbon through the eyelet on top of the hat

Files

There are three folders, one per print. Each has a 3MF for Snapmaker Orca, OrcaSlicer and Bambu Studio, plus STLs.

• Ornament: front and back blanks, the hinge clip and the neck cap on one plate. Filaments: 1 white, 2 black, 3 brown, 4 beige.

• Forming mold: the buck (dome with 4 corner posts) and the frame that slides down over the posts.

• Santa hat: the hat and the two pompom halves. Filaments: 1 white, 2 red.

The 3MFs are ready-to-slice projects: Snapmaker U1 for Snapmaker Orca, Bambu Lab P1S for OrcaSlicer and Bambu Studio, with the filaments, colors and part settings set. For another printer, change the printer and keep the filament slots.

How to print

• 0.4 mm nozzle, 0.20 mm layers.

• Ornament blanks: keep the per-part settings in the 3MF. The head prints as a 30 % honeycomb mesh with 1 wall and no top or bottom layers, which is what lets it stretch. A modifier makes the rim solid. Printed seam side down.

• Forming mold: print it in PETG, not PLA. PLA softens at the same temperature as the blank, so a PLA mold can deform under the hair dryer, and the hot PLA blank can stick to it. PETG stays firm and PLA doesn't bond to it, so the formed half comes off cleanly. 15 % grid infill, 3 walls; the top of the dome prints at 0.12 mm layers for a smoother face.

• Santa hat: prints upright on the band with tree supports from the build plate only (set in the 3MF). The pompom halves print flat side down, no supports.

• Arachne walls for the ornament and hat; no brim needed on any part.

• If you use the STLs, each one holds its color parts as separate meshes: use Split to parts and set each part's filament. The rim modifier and the blank settings above have to be added by hand, so the 3MF is easier.

Forming the head

1. Put a blank on the buck, printed (seam) side down, and slide the frame over the posts onto it. A bit of tape at the neck and hinge ends keeps the blank in place.

2. Heat the dome through the frame's opening with a hair dryer until the mesh softens.

3. Press the frame down evenly with the handles until it reaches the base, and hold it there until the plastic cools.

4. Do each half in one heat and one press. Reheating and pressing again warps the rim.

Assembly

1. With the halves open, push the hinge clip down onto the bars at the bottom of the two rims. It snaps on and the halves swing open and closed on it.

2. Fill with candy, close the halves and screw the black cap onto the neck. The cap holds the halves together.

3. Glue the pompom halves together on a short piece of 1.75 mm filament in the alignment holes, then glue the pompom onto the tip of the hat. The tip's end fits into the socket in one half.

4. Snap the hat down onto the cap. It turns freely, so the tip can point whichever way you like.

5. Thread a ribbon through the eyelet on the hat.

Credits

The thermoforming method (a flat printed mesh pressed into shape with a hair dryer) and the clip-hinge idea come from MIHAI_T's thermoformed models on MakerWorld: Thermoformed happy ghosts and the thermoformed jack-o-lantern. All files here are new designs.

Please note

This is a fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by The Ohio State University. Brutus Buckeye and the Block O are trademarks of The Ohio State University. For personal, non-commercial use only: please don't sell prints.

Go Bucks!