When [hobbyman] wanted some 3D printed parts to attach a bag to his bike, he was worried that the parts would not be strong enough to hold when the bag was full. He decided to find a way to reinforce the part with fiberglass and epoxy. His first model had holes and grooves to be filled in with epoxy.
However, after working with the part for a bit, he decided to take a different approach. Instead of making the part nearly solid plastic with space for the epoxy, he instead created the part as a shell and then filled it with fibers and epoxy. After it all cured, a little sanding started removing some of the plastic shell and what was left was mostly a cast fiberglass part (although some of the plastic was left on).
You can see the result in the video below. According to [hobbyman] the parts are like “granite.” The technique reminded us of how the OpenHand project create molds for urethane. If you are going to try making parts like [hobbyman], you might want to try tinting your epoxy.
Filed under: 3d Printer hacks
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