Terminator T REX by: Jeff Tregre

3D-Printer The Terminator T-REX VIDEO
Now for starters, I am by no means a 3D-Printer expert. In fact, this is my very first really large printout & I’ve only have the printer for about 2 months. Now if you’re looking at this & saying to yourself “I want to make one of those myself” let me just tell you that this final T-Rex was printed a total of 5 times before I finally had success.
You can download the file for free by going to: Thingiverse.com, enter in: Terminator REX. I selected the one by: Duplicate3D May 13, 2014. When you open the (Files) in your Slicer, you will see several files in which to select from. I tried several of them, but then finally went with the entire top & bottom T-Rex as one piece called: (Terminator_REX_V01.31_NoSupport).
You will have to add Supports to this model; but in using Auto Supports, for some reason it did not place supports on all of the upper teeth, so you must add them yourself. I printed this model in Full-Size of (X, Y, & Z) - the 3mm Raft in the Z Axis.
Now I am still playing around with the Settings on my printer. Since I wanted this to come out as close to perfect as possible, I printed this in Hyper Mode taking 42 hours & using PLA Plastic. The main body of the T-Rex came out really good, but the top & bottom teeth & several of the hydraulic pumps came out really looking poor. I therefore decided to re-print these items. I opened up the .fpp File that I saved to print this model, Cleared All Supports, then started Cutting out everything but the Top Teeth, Bottom Teeth, & Hydraulics that I was going to re-print in a much slower, Hyper Mode Setting. I used the Red PLA for these items.
All the parts you see in Red of the bear model before painting, were what I replaced. Now I’m an engineer; not a dentist, but I almost feel like one after what I had to do to get these top & bottom teeth to fit. I used a Dremel Tool & small grinding stones to delete the model’s original printed top & bottom teeth. I then sanded this area down by hand using 100 grit sandpaper, until the top & bottom gums were smooth.
I used a belt sander to grind down the new re-printed teeth until I got really close to what I wanted. Then with the Dremel Tool & small grinding stones, I did even more grinding. When the teeth looked pretty good, I placed each upper & lower teeth; one at a time, into hot water which had been boiled. Lower the lower base of the teeth into the very hot water, but only for a few seconds. This will soften the base of the teeth up, to where you can get a pretty close fit of the teeth to the gums.
Now comes gluing. I cleaned the teeth & the gums & then using 5 minute Epoxy, glued the teeth to the gums. I also glued in the Hydraulics. After the Epoxy dried I sanded the sides of the teeth to the gums for a nice even fit. Using Bondo as a filler, I then filled in the areas which had voids & needed filler. What I love so much about using Bondo is that after only about 3 to 5 minutes, you can take a flat edge razor & then cut away & shape any excess semi-hard Bondo. After the Epoxy & Bondo have fully dried, sand the teeth & gums down for a nice smooth edge.
Now for the Eyes: I drilled out the eyes in my T-Rex. Then in Thingiverse.com, I entered in: (Terminator Rex Seperate LED eyes) & printing using Red PLA plastic, the eyeballs. This will allow the bright white LEDs to light up the eyeballs. You can change the diameter size of the eye balls you’re printing, to fit the size holes of your T-Rex’s eyes.
The Name Plate (Terminator T-REX). I used PhotoShop & placed black text onto a white background & used the Font; Perfect Dark (BRK), which you can download for free from the web. You can print a .JPG File on your 3D-Printer. I increased the Z axis so that the text would stand out.
Now lastly, I printed this model using silver PLA plastic, but it looked mostly gray, than it did silver, so I spray painted the model using Rust-Oleum 2X Metallic Silver paint. Now my T-Rex looks like chrome. I worked on this model for several hours each day for about 2 full weeks. If you like what you see & have any questions, please ask, Jeff