Tie printing tips.

Some people have asked how to improve the painting on their prints, so here are a few tips!

1. Since the ties print upside down, increase your "Bottom paint penetration layers" we usually do 8.

2. If you have the pattern come up the sides some and stop all in the same place it'll improve print time and save filament since you don't need it to go around the whole tie if you don't want to. A way to do this is after you've painted your pattern come back with a larger brush set to "Horizontal" and you can either overpaint, or hold down "Shift" to erase the excess paint.

3. How do you get stripes so even? The best way is to use the "Horizontal" and "Vertical" paint settings. Since those are relative to the ties current position all you need to do is rotate your tie paint it with the stripes using a combination of those settings then use the "Lay on Face" tool or the little undo button inside the rotate tool to put it back.

4. The brush is only round, how do I get different patterns? To do this start with the painting the rough shape with the round brush then come back with the background color, or hold "Shift" and erase the parts of the original design to create sharper corners. To make a triangle start with a big circle then come back and part of the 3 sides leaving a triangle.

5. How do I make bigger/smaller patterns when the brush only goes from 0.10 to 8? The best way is to change the size of the model temporarily. If you need a bigger circle, make a note of the model's size, make it smaller, paint it with large brush, then reset the size to what you want. Now you'll have a circle bigger than the 8. Also, sometimes you can type in a number larger that 8 and it still works.

6. Since the ties print upside down you can use smooth plates, or print plates with patterns to make your ties look even better!