Paint Lug - Simple Tool for Painting Sub-Assemblies

cults3d

I've been painting a lot of my minis in sub-assemblies recently, and one thing that continuously frustrated me was finding a good way to mount them. I tried paperclips stabbed into corks, but you couldn't put them down. I tried using wooden blocks, but they were a pain to hold onto. Gluing paperclips to 25mm bases allowed me to use my painting handles, but they weren't heavy enough to stay upright. After a bit of tinkering, I had a decent single-piece gadget. It worked well, but had to be rotated because the first locking mechanism I made had a flat overhang. What you're looking at is version 1.1, and you should be able to drop it (or several of them) on a build plate and print with no supports. Here's how it works: Instructions 1. Print the thing out. Hopefully this is obvious. Depending on your exposure settings and whether you printed directly on the plate (base layer creep), you may need to clean out some of the slots/holes with a 1.5mm drill bit or whatever pokey-scrapey thing you prefer. This thing was designed for resin printing. Filament people, YMMV. 2. Straighten a jumbo paperclip, then bend it at a 135-degree angle (more or less). 3. Poke it into the base and out the top. 4. Swing it up and over the detente (arch thing). This is the lock that keeps it from falling out, but makes it removable. You can bend the excess down to really lock things in place, if you want. 5. Glue it onto your sub-assembly. 6. Chuck it into your favorite paint handle and start slinging some paint. If you have several assemblies to do, you can swap them out while they dry. The lugs make great stands. License Do what you want with this. I made it for myself, but hopefully it helps you, too. If you make any derivatives, incorporate it into some other work, or include it in a public post, all I ask is that you include attribution and send me a message with the thing you created. You don't have to, but that would be nice. TheTeknyshn theteknyshn@thetek.org