Summary

100% printable scale armor. No metal rings necessary.

I reverse-engineered scale armor through research so that plastic plates and rings could be printed. I am currently creating a scale armor tunic for an individual study in my studio art major at UMW. My blog on the project: http://awatkins.umwblogs.org/category/methods/3d-printing/

If you're curious about scale armor, Wikipedia has an informative article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scale_armour

Instructions

Each scale needs two rings to link together.

I find it useful to multiply my build platform http://www.makerbot.com/tutorials/skeinforgemultiply/ and print two scales and four rings alternately.

I set the pair of scales to print at 5 infill at accelerated speeds on the Replicator and the rings to print at 50 infill at non-accelerated speeds. In this configuration each print takes about 20 minutes.

A note about the rings: on the two printers I've used, the ring comes out pretty tight, I like this, it keeps the scales together well; however, it does require popping the ring's spiral out while it's warm and bendy. If it's too tough to do by hand, it's easy to sneak a small pair of scissors in there to loosen the stuck area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dKD2n-kvVo The Ring Lord scale maille tutorial is where I learned how it should look.

I have a post on the design process on my independent study blog: http://awatkins.umwblogs.org/methods/positive-and-negative-z/

Ceremonial Garment (Plastic Age)