3D Printed Sewing Box

Above: Original Design with lettering

Above: Close up of lettering.

Challenge - Student had a birthday coming up for a family member.  She wanted to personalise a box to act as a gift for her Grandmother.   The idea was for her box to be personalised for sewing.  The student who created this project is a nine year old.
Background: Student has proven to be adept at a number of designs  of an increasingly complex nature.   The student wanted to have the design as a single print, however the lettering that was produced proved to be unsatisfactory.  The student then used sandpaper to remove the lettering.  This produced some scratching in the base of the design however it was essential to allow the lettering to be added on the original design. As a consequence the student printed the lettering again and this time it was printed in white PLA.    The lettering was then superglued to the print.   The student was pleased with the final details on the print. It should be noted that even with the new lettering that was The white lettering was somewhat smaller due to the space that was available.  The white 'Nana' lettering was large enough to be individually removed and glued to the design the 'sewing cool' lettering was considerably smaller.   Because of this a decision was made to retain the backing rafting for the lettering.   This ensured that the lettering retained its form and structure.   The final stage of the design was to apply oil based blue paint to paint over the remaining sandpaper 

Above: Final design with mixed lettering

Level of Difficulty: Medium.  A basic box design which was personalised with the addition of the sewing machines, the sewing buttons and a star.   The lettering itself was designed to work in unison with the box so had to be a specific size.  
Timeframe: Sixteen hours for the box.  The original lettering would have added a small amount of time to the print.   The white PLA lettering that was added to the final print took forty minutes.   As a side note of time to remove the original lettering with sandpaper was extremely minimal it was three or four minutes maximum.   
Size: The box was essentially a 120mm box.    The depth of the box was 20mm.  In theory this could have been reduced however the student was pleased with the box itself and wanted the size to remain.

What we would do differently: We have started experiementing with mixing PLA and producing component pieces for printing.  Ideally this student would have created an insert for the lettering into the base of the box itself and then the lettering could have been secured in these locations.  The student is probably needing to try this with a smaller print first, to ensure that they can master the technique that they need.
Next steps for students:  As mentioned the lettering could have included as an insert into the  base of the design.  This is potentially a more advanced procedure than the current students skillset.   The student needs to paint the design to complete the design presentation of the print.