Geography for the Record: 3D Printed Archipelago on a Painted Record

Unfortunately, the world is not flat, but this one is! By using a scratched up record, some LED fairy lights and 3D printed terrain, you can make your own flat Earth to fulfill your fantasies and conversations. In this lesson you will learn how to make 3D printed islands, how to paint a record, and how to make a unique and fascinating conversation piece!

Supplies

-Tinkercad

-3D Printer

-Record (I bought mine second hand)

-Acrylic Paint

-Paint brushes (medium flat and small detail)

-Drill press

-LED lights

-Hot glue gun

Step 1: Making the Islands

I suggest making the islands using Tinkercad, as it is the easiest program for this application.

Use the scribble feature in Tinkercad to design the shape of your island. Then, alter the height of the island to be 1 millimeter tall.

Copy your shape and make the copy a few millimeters smaller. Then, raise the height to be flush to the bottom of your bigger shape.

Keep copying the smaller shape and repeating this process until you are pleased with shape of your island.

Make as many islands as you think are necessary to make a nice archipelago.

If you do not want to design your own islands, here is a link to the ones I made:

Step 2: Printing Out the Islands

Once you have finished designing the archipelago, export them to your 3D printer and print them in high density so that the details will show.

Make sure that your islands are not too large as they will have to fit in the interior part of the record.

Step 3: Painting the Record and Islands

Once the archipelago is printed, place them on the record to determine where you want to put them.

Then, using a medium flat brush, paint the inner area of the record ocean blue. (I find it looks good when a mixture of colors are used. e.g. blue and green.)

Once this coat has dried, take your small detail brush and use white to paint waves around the archipelago by dabbing the brush lightly. Do not put to much paint on your brush for this step.

Next, also using a small detail brush, paint the archipelago using earth tones (beige, green, grey).

Step 4: Making the Holes in the Record

Next, use a drill press to make holes for the stars. I made holes a 1/4 of a centimeter big. Put these holes all over the outside of the record, these will be the stars.

be careful when doing this step as records are very brittle and you could break it if you aren't careful.

Step 5: Putting in the LED Lights

First, heat up your hot glue gun and flip your record upside down.

Then, place the LED lights in the holes made in the last step and hot glue them in place.

Repeat this until all the holes are covered.

Last but not least, flip your record right-side-up and turn on the LED's and look at the amazing world you just created!