Hi! I am new to this board but have been using CookieCad for the last 3 months and really appreciate the work that has gone into developing the cad site.
Now, is there any way that I can use one single blade that starts at say 1mm thick and reduces to say 0.2mm creating a single beveled blade? Cuts into the dough would be much easier and cleaner if this is a feature that could be added.
Thanks!
As a former programmer I can chime in and say that the App can be programmed to do anything. BUT the limitations are with the 3D printer itself. I’m not a 3D printing expert but I’ve found that with my .4mm nozzle I have trouble printing anything under .6mm thick. I can print a .4mm blade but it tends to break very easily, and if I add a .4mm “extra blade” it tends to separate from the main blade. So I don’t think the 3D printer with a .4mm nozzle could bevel an edge unless it goes down by .4mm or .6mm with each step. If you went with a .2mm nozzle you might be able to get a finer gradient, but at the scale of a cookie cutter, a 3D print is never going to give you a blade as sharp and as sturdy as molded plastic or stainless steel.
Just my inexpert opinion.
Currently I am using a 2 blade setting for the cookie cutters. I set the regular blade at 17.5mm depth and 0.555 thickness. I set the extra blade at 15.5mm depth and 1.05mm thickness. So combined they are 1.56mm thick and then drop off to 0.555 thickness for 2mm (the cutting edge). These blades are used to cut 1/4" thick sugar cookie dough and are holding up well. The only problem I have is the “shoulder” that is created from when the extra blade drops off. I originally had a blade separation problem, but I addressed that with the cura slicer and now the 2 blades don’t separate. I am using a Ender3 pro with a .4mm nozzle.
Before I started printing our own cutters we bought them online (my wife is the baker, I just do the computer stuff with the 3D printer and eddie printer). We purchased some cutters which were 3D printed and they do start with a thick blade close to the handle and then it is gradually reduced to a thin edge where it cuts into the dough. There is no “shoulder” from using a 2 blade print and they are definitely 3D printed because they have the layer lines. I figure that they are using a .2mm nozzle and are gradually reducing the thickness with less lines as the blade gets thinner. Maybe they are using a different type of 3D printer?
Rereading your reply (Carol), you did mention exactly what I want to achieve and that is “stepping down” the thickness of the blade setting by .4mm to where the final line is .4mm with the previous line being maybe .6mm and so on to where the thickness of the blade next to the handle is 1.6mm thick. The gradual stepping down the thickness is what I want to learn how to do.