I’d be a terrible salesman. Promoting things; compelling a call to action; these just aren’t part of my default behaviors.
But: short attention spans? That, I understand. So I’ll but the result right up front, this time.
Trying to implement abalone or mother of pearl in the Dial of Destiny prop builds has bothered me since I started on it. I never found a great 3D printing solution for a true pearlescent effect though I found a pretty good workaround for the white rings.
I set up a two color print with a black backing and the top layers with a silk white. The glyphs in the rings are cutouts, that reveal the black beneath. Silk filaments have a directional polarization to their reflection that becomes evident if you print the same part in two different orientations.
It occurred to me that part of what gives pearl its beauty is that it also polarizes and reflects at different angles based on the organic matrix of the intricate growth patterns of the material. People are like Bass, we like shiny things. It roots back to evolutionary selection for pattern matching cognitive behaviors developed on the Serengeti. (Probably)
As 3d printers put down layers, you can control the patterns of movement by setting various travel and fill patterns. The printers often use faster (but less visually consistent) patterns for interior structures and then switch to monotonic patterns for top layers in order to try to provide a uniform finish. If you think of a 3D print as an Oreo, the bottom and top layers have one pattern and the filling can be something else entirely. Yummy. I’m not sure what the milk is in this metaphor…
Anyway.. so, I had this idea. What if I reduce top layers and let some of that patterning through; especially considering the visual properties of silk white filaments. To get this effect, I could reduce the top-layer counts of a print or even just pause and top the print early when it looked “right.” It worked out pretty well and gave the Dial’s white features a pearlescent effect. I’d typically spend a day making nothing but the white parts for future builds using this trick and my build plates have the wear grooves to show for it.
One limitation is that the effect is diminished in larger surface areas. I tried to account for it with various holographic skateboard paints but lets be real. Actual Pearl always beat plastic.
Glyph Disc
Last year I started including a mother of pearl glyph disc option with the Dial of Destinies that I made for people. The process was timing consuming, the material is costly and can be a challenge to work with. I started by ordering 240mm x 140mm Mother of Pearl Veneer Sheets. You can get them from Amazon, from Etsy, from specialty suppliers and prices vary from $75/sheet on the top end to about $8/sheet when buying in bulk from a sketchy part of the internet. I applied the veneer sheet to a backing material with adhesives. I cut the pearl circle by hand with a hobby knife. I went through alot of hobby knives.
Pro-tip that I learned while cutting floor tile. A piece of masking tape (on both sides) of the area you plan to cut, then cutting through the masking tape -and- material at the same time can help sharpen the cut lines and keep it from crumbling. It works for marble and tile floors and it happens to work for mother of pearl as well.
Marking the glyphs onto the pearl is a challenge.
I tried various approaches at using hand-made stencils but most were underwhelming. Anything from 3d printed stencils to vinyl cut stencils. The vinyl-cut stencils mostly worked but the Cricut is my wife’s toy. She has a job -and- keeps the kids alive when I’m mad science’ing in the garage; doesn’t need me adding to her Cricut cutter backlog.
Top, unpainted plastic print. Middle, Dark pearl. Bottom, Light pearl.
I had Dry Transfer Decals made from the glyph design. At bulk, I ended up with two giant rolls for a few hundred dollars from different brands.
The first vendor, Ninja Transfers misprinted the first order, got the middle order correct. They sent the entirely wrong product type on the third order, which was a reprint from a QR code of the good roll. The print and cut quality is really good. From the customer perspective it feels like a fully automated print on demand business with bugs in the print provisioning pipeline. Their customer service was so unhelpful that they may already have been replaced by chatGPT agents. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had another batch made from a local sign company.
The challenge with dry transfers was that their transfer tape was too sticky. Removing the transfer tape pulls and cracks the upper nacre layer of the shell sheet.
Heat transfers work but have to be applied before the shell is applied to the backer. The backer becomes warped from the 380F heat press.
I can get 1 1/2 glyph disc per 240mm x 140mm sheet of MOP. I seamed together each scrap at the up-arrow and used these in discounted (fused Dials) aimed at Cosplay. The single piece, went to the more expensive complete Dials that I sold. This is why there was a price difference between the two.
