Flame Ornament (from a Water Droplet)

In this instructable we are going to design and print a pretty flame ornament using Tinkercad and a simple water droplet model that I created.

Lets get started

Computer or tablet

3D printer

Filament

First we will create the flame shape.

Open Tinkercad in your browser and create a new design.

Download the water droplet stl file attached.

Copy and paste the droplet and make the second one into a 'hole'

Place the hole over the original water droplet shape, a little offset (see picture 2) and group them together. You can play with this part, depending where you place your hole you will get a different looking flame so make sure you create one you like the look of and one that is thicker enough to print. Picture 3 shows you the one I settled on.

Now lets start to layer the flames together

Take you flame and copy and paste it 3 times so that you have 4 pieces.

Change the height, width or rotation of each flame so that they are all slightly different and arrange them in a rough circle. Once you are happy group them together.

Copy and paste that set of flames, increase the height and decrease the size on the x and y axis. Now do this again creating an even taller and slimmer set of flames

Align the three sets of flames and and play with the dimensions and rotation of each until you like the overall look. Once happy group the flames together.

Now lets add a base and slice our print

Highlight your flames ornament and check your x and y lengths. Create a cylinder with a similar diameter to the longest length reduce the height to 4mm and align with your ornament. Group the two pieces together and export the stl.

Import your stl into your slicer and slice using your normal settings - you shouldn't need to use supports for this print.

Print your flame ornament in a shiny red/gold/orange filament

There you have a beautiful flame ornament made out of a single water droplet model.

Display your ornament and play with the lighting to create different efffects.

See my flame ornament in action here: