These are our 8 Cobra chess pieces:

These pieces were made using the thingiverse file titled ‘Chess Snake’ from user Kazo65 at this link: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6083440

Originally we faced some trouble converting the .stl to a SolidWorks solid due to gaps in the mesh but we were able to work it out by simplifying the mesh in meshmixer and using the half without errors for both of the molds. We then added an air tunnel to the ‘Mold Base 4h x 3w’ file from canvas along with the halved snake piece. We 3D printed the first half on the Bambu printer and CNC cut the other half using the Shapeoko. The CNC cut used a 1/4″ bit and a 1/8″ bit and took around 2.5 hours to cut. Originally when the gcode was set to cut the mold to the bottom of the material doing the roughing path with 1/8″ bit it wouldv’e taken upwards of 10 hours. The adjustments cut down a lot of time.

The mold of both of these sides was relatively smooth. The 3D printed psrt has a softer portion to it due to part of the solution not being fully mixed towards the end, but it was still perfectly useable. Due to the shape of the excess material on the CNC molded half the two halves did not align themselves perfectly using just the pegs. We could’ve benefited from larger pegs to help with this problem.

 

The final pieces came out with some slight deformations due to the slight misalignment along with some of the mixtures being slightly below the amount needed to fill the mold. For some of these pieces, this was due to the solution also filling the air hole. One piece is slightly sticky due to the solution not being mixed thoroughly enough.

The pieces were post-processed using a box cutting blade and 100-grit sandpaper to smooth out bumps and excess material. Overall, the set looks nice together in a fun color scheme.