When I started this creative adventure, I didn't know where I was going and how I was going to get there, but I'll start at the beginning and what lead up to this wild ride.
I love 3d printing. However, I hate the wasted filament from failed prints, supports, broken prints, short filament samples and when the leftover filament on the roll is too short to print anything else. I've looked into methods to melt it and turn it back into filament, but that was too expensive. I've saved it up for a while then thrown it away and even quit printing for awhile. Then I only printed things without supports, but sometimes those fail and or break if there is a weak part. I started saving all the scraps again because I thought I could melt them down into molds and make cute stuff that way, but that takes way too much time and heat for a regular kitchen oven. Then I got a 3D pen. I could finally use those short scraps of filament! After playing with it for awhile and brainstorming what all I could do with it, I got the notion to use it in combination with all my "trash" to create some new "treasures".
I had no idea what I was going to make, or exactly how it would turn out, but at about 5:30 am Saturday morning, I sat down at my desk, armed with my 3D pen, a small butane torch, tweezers and needle nose pliers, and a box of filament/print scraps, and went to work. Some random metal additions, a screw, some wire, some chain, a broken metal axe charm, and a spring from a pen, finished the look. I spent around 5 hours on this altogether (in between family interruptions), and 3 cups of coffee. Cooking supper afterwards took a 4th cup of coffee 🤣.