I know Christmas is over and the new year has started, but this was my main adventure for November and December.

Many months ago, I got the idea that this year’s Christmas card would be 3D printed.  After many rough drafts, I decided on the “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” design.

The initial design phase went smoothly.  And then, I had more ideas.  The words on the tree should turn, so the tree would look like it had stagger branches.  The words on the tree should be readable from any angle.  Oh, it need a tree skirt and the simplest design would have stars on the skirt.

It then occurred to me the tree needed a train going around it.  Well, the train could not literally go around it, because the size of the train.  My printer would not be able to print the tiny detail the train would need to allow it’s wheels to turn.

I still was not entirely happy with the tree skirt.  The tree needed presents.  I designed three unique presents and place them under the tree scaling them to different sizes and placing them under the tree at different angles.

Designing the tree was the easy part.  Printing the tree out, proved to be the most challenging part.  The filament started grinding.  I regularly had be dismantle the extruder box to remove filament.  I also had to dismantle and reassemble the printer head on no  least three occasions to correct issues.  That is why only 6 of these Christmas tree were sent to friends and family.

There were eight .stl files created to print the tree.

The .stl files can be downloaded from youmagine.com.

https://www.youmagine.com/designs/we-wish-you-a-merry-christmas-tree/embed