My Cup Runneth Over - 3d Printed Bra v1

Support your local makers - I'm doing my part with this 3d printed bra. Yes, that's right... a custom bikini top bra cup designed in Fusion 360 and printed on a hobby level 3d printer.

Okay, so the project started as a hat. Think "fascinator" base or mesh ball-caps. I wanted to see how different types of French curves joined together when bent. I knew different curves could result in any shape from a cone to a perfect sphere, or onion domes to flattened rounded-corner cylinders. But I had never really designed something with a variable curving shape. Hats looked like a good item to test with. Little did I know.

So I started experimenting with curves and shapes and bending --- and voila, I had my first piece of 3d printed lingerie instead. It not only  turned out better than I expected, I decided a 3d printed bikini top is way more useful and fun than a hat anyways - pretty happy with this failure discovery.

Bright pink bikini bra cup printed on a 3d printer and designed in Fusion 360. It's a bit of over designing, but it sure was fun.

I've been experimenting with heat-shaping 3d printed panels recently. Sure, I can print the model pre-shaped, an all in one standalone print. I could have easily printed this object pre-bent and ready to wear. But as I discovered when printing my mini-terrarium greenhouse, it's sometimes a lot quicker to print flat objects and assemble them.

My first experiment with heat-forming 3d-prints was a simple bowl made from a flat 3d-printed sheet, which turned out okay. Good enough that I wanted to try something more complex.

The bowl shaping experiment relied on the patterns within the perforations to allow deformation when heated. The corners in the pattern are arranged so that the surface can bend in three dimensions without significantly changing the structure. That technique worked fine, so I wanted to add a second variable to better control the shape.

I know a little about traditional pattern making for clothes. I also have some experience shaping and heat-forming foam panels into costumes and props for cosplay. So I figured heat shaping PLA wouldn't be that much different.

I also wanted to use this series of tests to better understand just how curves affect the final shape. I have Fusion 360 and Meshmixer and several other programs that could take the final shape and create a cutting pattern for me.

(I had to print a couple of quick failed experiments before I remembered that I needed to use those traditional pattern making skills though. Not always the smartest cookie on the shelf.)

But the software makes most of the decisions when I use those techniques, and I really wanted to understand how to do it manually. I think when I understand pattern making better I can probably force or at least suggest settings for the programs to give me better patterns.

This is the first experiment that gave me the smoothly varying curves I was after. It was a very simple pattern, but it was also the first time I used splines (aka French curves) instead of simple arcs. The result is a lot closer to a single, flowing shape and less like the segmented domes I got when I used simple arcs and lines.

That's when I decided to declare, "This is now officially a bra." Well, half a bra... okay just one cup. But still, it's a much more body-friendly form than anything I had created before.

Also notice that the decorative-infill pattern is simple. It is NOT designed to flex and deform. That means this sheet of plastic reacts to bending in a manner very similar to that of paper or non-stretchy cloth. It's really just the way the two curves join that makes the final shape so much smoother.

If I combined the deformable-mesh technique from the bowl experiment with the spline-curve edges from this experiment, the plastic sheet should begin to behave more like cosplay-foam or stretchy cloth. Then... print it in flexible filament to actually make it comfortable to wear. That's the next phase of experiments.

And yes, there should be more experiments with 3d-printed fabric and clothing coming soon. But understanding the traditional methods of pattern making is still an essential skill. For instance, my 3d-printed chainmail is pretty flexible. But to get it to fit properly at any large scale, like a vest or corset, I will still need to create differently shaped pieces of the mail just like you would with old-fashioned cloth.

The pattern in Fusion 360. You can see the different types of curves on every edge. Sure, it's 3d, but the principles are the same as used in traditional clothing patterns.

So no matter which direction I go, I must get better at pattern making. Right now, I have my hands full just with this, but I can already tell it's going to be a fun journey.

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Making a 3d Printed Bowl with a Hairdryer

Fun 3d printed project with none of the technical hassles. People sometimes shy away from 3d printing because it looks so complicated. I wanted to make something simple that people could play with and easily customize, a little something that they could hold in their hands and shape with nothing but a hair dryer and some light pressure.

Plus, if people can touch it and control it, shape it with heat and get comfortable with the material, then they might be more interested in learning about 3d printing. It's not so scary once you realize it's just regular plastic that has been heated up until it can be bent and sculpted. That's why they call it "thermos plastic" after all.

Expando changoooo...  take a simple home hair dryer a to a thin PLA 3d print and you can shape it and bend it into any form you want. The best (and worst) of both worlds.

So you can see where the lines started to string and the lip got deformed, but that's mostly from a lack of control with the hair dryers.

I knew that thin 3d prints could be reshaped with a common hair dryer, so I designed a simple lattice that I could print really quickly.

I have played around with these types of lattice structures before. I've made them out of paper and craft-foam and even cloth. So I knew a few shapes and cutting patterns that expand nicely when they get deformed








I hoped that the 3d prints would expand and shape nicely, and more importantly, I hoped that they would hold there shape and remain sturdy once they cooled back down.

The paper and foam versions are fun to play with,  but they don't hold their shape when released. They collapse back into a flat sheet. It's fun to make accordion shapes that you can stretch and twist and bounce, but I wanted the lattice to keep it's shape.

So 3d printer plastic (specifically PLA) seemed like a good bet.

It started life as a flat sheet.

Then it got heated and pressed onto a sphere to deform the lattice.

And it worked really well. The PLA did stretch and expand much like the craft-foam, but it held it's shape perfectly when it cooled down.

There are some issues I want to work on. You'll notice that the print became "stringy" and the edges are warped. I printed the lattice so thin that the individual "print lines" acted as strings and I turned the hair dryer on high, so the strings became so flexible they actually got blown around by the air. I wanted them to separate and expand uniformly, not like a wild hair day. Even the edges got softened and deformed.

The fix should be easy. I can print the lattice thicker, I can use a lower heat and blower setting - or I can even put the lattice into a toaster oven and let it gently drape over a form from the force of gravity.

And I could make a simple frame to hold the edges so that they don't deform while the center of the lattice gets all rubbery and stretchy. Lots of ideas to play with.









This is just a simple bowl. But the same technique can be used to create jewelry like bracelets and necklaces. A more advanced maker could create hats and other fashion accessories. Those 3d printed arm and leg braces that you've seen, well they are often heat formed for the final fit.

And individual parts can be "welded" together to form larger pieces. So the brim and bowl of a hat could be printed separately, formed to the user's liking, then be combined into a finished hat.

More importantly, most people are comfortable drawing a flat 2d design. And they have bent various materials for years with their bare hands.

With this technique anyone can draw a simple 2d pattern, print it out in minutes, then heat form it into the shape they want. Once they do that, maybe they will want to start doing the same thing in 3d.

Just another way to gently introduce people to 3d design... muhahahaaaaa.

Also made a bra, or maybe a hat, with this technique.

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