Last year – it always sounds cool –, when I tried to 3D print a moose, the score was 1 for the moose and 0 for me. Initial layer non-stickiness and, for some odd reasons, failure to extrude PVA (polyvinyl alcohol), were the root causes of this epic double fail. I believe that I understand the issues and what I was doing wrong. After a small – but successful – test object I’ve created and printed to try again using PVA as support material again, I’ve decided to re-try printing the dreaded moose.

After all, this is a good benchmark to gauge my progress – if any. Well, almost six hours later, it turned out pretty well! The changes I’ve made consist of re-seating the PVA filament and extruding manually a big chuck of PVA. On the print bed, I’ve used glue that I’ve let dry out (actually, I didn’t clean the bed after the test print). Finally, during the print of the first layers, I’ve removed any filament that could get into the path of the print heads. Now that PVA is somehow under control, I could use tap water to dissolve the support structure. There are a couple of time lapses if you want to see this cool phenomenon. The only caveat, it takes hours. But nothing an overnight bath cannot handle.

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