Knife Assist 3D Printed - Success at Making a Great Print to Give As a Gift

After much trial and error learning to use the Type A machines 3D printer I am printing my first piece to give as a gift. The piece was downloaded from thingiverse and is knife assist to help when cutting hard items with a kitchen knife. this print with a solid bottom printed well and was easily removed from the print platform.

Submitted by SFlettering for the Instructables Sponsorship Program

Step 1: Starting Outline Only Line

Here is the outline for the print. You will notice when printing that although a raft layer was not used the 3D printer will automatically print an outline of the piece when starting out. This step is important toward getting a high quality print as it reduces errors with the PLA by using an outline layer. 

I made it at Techshop http://techshop.ws

Step 2: Filling in the Base

Here you can see a base layer filled in back and forth at 45 degree angles. Note that this fill settings can be changed to other more solid options such as 100% infill which is fully solid. This default print setting worked well for printing the base of the knife assist.

Step 3: First Few Layers After the Base

Here you can see a 3D print that is working well with a solid base layer an no obvious mistakes when starting out the print. 

Step 4: 70% of the Way Through Printing

After printing 70% of the way you can see that each part of the model is lining and printing well of the previous layer.
What I learned from this model is that well designed models produces great 3D prints.

Step 5: 90% of the Way

At 90% of the way toward completion you can see a print with only minor errors that should finish without major problems. A single object like this when successfully started within the print process will complete with few errors because a solid initial layer was put into place. 

Step 6: Final Print on Print Platform Ready for Removal

Here is the final print before it was removed from the build platform. The size and height of the final print made it easier to take off this printed piece that other models due to height to width ratios of the 3D printed part. 

A knfie assist is a smart part to print as it can be very useful when cutting hard items in the kitchen. while using this piece in the kitchen I noticed that the width of the print could be reduced and angled toward the front to keep the knife assist from slide around too much. 

Overall great print and great model from thingiverse.com