There's a project I've been wanting to try for a while now; making my own coin. The way I've been thinking about doing it breaks down to four stages; design, print, mold and mint. I've been working on the first two stages and have revisited the design quite a bit to make up for oversights relating to the new techniques I've learnt, but what took me hours to do originally, now takes a few minutes.
The first design went well. I learnt how to make simple 3D models and came up with what you see below.
The first print, well, that didn't work out so well. I thought that printing slowly and with fine detail would provide the best outcome but it just meant that the incredibly hot nozzle spent too much time on and around the plastic, melting it terribly. It also turns out that lots of dots, don't come out very well in 3D prints, which makes a good deal of sense.
The second major design was better. Splitting the coin into three sections would help conceal the joins too.
The end result was fine. With a little tiding up, it might look pretty good. But I don't think it'll be suitable for molding. I'll have to come up with a way of getting more depth and definition without making the coin too thick.
