Car Badge Design
 

Please excuse the crap qualityof the badge at the moment. This i me just playing with some failed prints.

The idea is to create what looks like an old '50s badge. The colours aren't great - I am limited to what I have to hand at the moment but basically it is the BMW badge with the Italian tri-olour above it and the word Prototipo.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4723/...4f85697e_c.jpgcarbadge by WCA!, on Flickrckr

The colour panels are printed and painted separately and then inlaid into the main badge. The idea is tat it should look old, hand made, a bit battered and not perfect (but not as 'not perfect' as the one I have at the moment)

The question is, does the badge design look like an authentic '50s badge, (what ever that looks like)?

Following the masses of feedback on the first prototype I printed a second version o a higher quality.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4714/...4a38742a_c.jpg20180212_125747 by WCA!, on Flickr

The holes in the back are to allow me to push out the little inserts if I need to.

This will now be sanded smooth. The inserts are printing as I type and they will be sanded and checked for size. Everything then gets panted, sanded, panted and put together for what will hopefully look okay.

Time will tell...

The first one has a bit of a twenties feel to it. The latest looks like it came from a Jacobean mansion, although I guess it won't be wood coloured in the final version.

The 50s car badges were mostly in flowery italics, but I don't think that is the look you are going for.

Flowery Italics are a git to print either raised or countersunk. The wiggly bit on the P is about as flamboyant as I dare go.

I will explain it away as BMW not letting the Italian designers have too much freedom :-)

The finished version should have a colour scheme close to the first but hopefully a better paint job.

It is great to see the enormous step forward between the two versions.

I didn't really feel qualified to comment on 50's logos being a child of the 70's...

But (there's always a but!)
I kinda like the idea that although it is a BMW it is/will be difficult for people to guess. The badge with the prominent BMW logo takes away some of the mystery.

So I'd have looked at something like this (apologies for the poor quality) where the focus is on the tribute to Italy and a nod to BMW.

https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4648/...7a6121b1_b.jpgCapture by couerdelion2013, on Flickr

It is great to see the enormous step forward between the two versions. - The first was a failed print caused by the printer x-axis belt skipping, hence the rubbish finish.

I didn't really feel qualified to comment on 50's logos being a child of the 70's... I only pre-date the '70s by a year :-)

I agree yours is a more subtle nod to BMW but the size of the blue badge bits would be a real git to print. Also, I want it to look like ot was an 'official' badge of the time.

Still playing around with a couple other designs but I want to go through the process of actually getting a badge to a point it is ready to fit. That way I can learn what works and what doesn't rather than developing a load of badges that will never work.

So far I have changed the fancy font to something simpler, widened the grooves to 2mm from 1.5mm and also setting the recess back to 2mm from 1.5mm.

This should give a better print finish, the black badge above seems to show that it is working.

It is just so frustrating trying to do this when I can't walk about. Everything takes so damn long to do...

I have managed to eventually complete my first proper prototype badge. I will share some photos and then some lessons learned in case any of you fancy trying something similar.

1) Be aware that 3D printing using a £150 home built kit is not an eact science and you will get issues. The first shows what happens if the print speed is too fact. The second has slipped on the X-Axis due to a slack belt so has that 'step' at the top of the badge with a matching undercut at the bottom.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4716/...df8bd0ef_c.jpg20180207_105733 by WCA!, on Flickr
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4723/...4f85697e_c.jpgcarbadge by WCA!, on Flickr
As you can see, I still used the second failed print to test the idea of different coloured inserts and was quite please with the results. What I needed now was a decent quality print for the base badge and the various inserts. Tighten the belts and correct the temperature and you get this. A quick buzz with the dremel to get rd of any lines.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4656/...073e8fb8_c.jpg20180213_151724 by WCA!, on Flickr

Repeat for the rest and you are ready for prep and paint.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4721/...6cfca897_c.jpg20180214_120235 by WCA!, on Flickr

Here it is painted. I was struggling to think how to make the script a different colour to the main body of the badge. I did not want to try and print an insert for each letter as that would be too small and fiddly. I ended up sinking the letters back into the badge and filling them with pastercine (pink in the picture above) and simply spraying over. The plan was to then use a scalpel to dig out the letters to reveal the underlying colour.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4653/...374be348_c.jpg20180215_103212 by WCA!, on Flickr

The letters came out 'okay' but not great. I will need to find a better way I think. Anyway, I decided to proceed with what I had, after changng the colour of the ring and the U to red. I coated the whole badge with some clear 5 minute Z-poxy resin and left to dry.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4710/...ef18c5eb_c.jpg20180215_165235 by WCA!, on Flickr

This gave the badge a nice glossy finish but dried so quickly t was hard to get a nice finish. In future I will get some of the 30 minute z-Poxy.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4698/...3451f7cf_c.jpg20180215_164332 by WCA!, on Flickr

I new this was only ever a prototype some continued to experiment. This time I made up a bigger batch of the poxy and literally spooned it over the badge to form a layer a couple of mm think and even had a few drips of the edges. The result looked a lot better apart from some bubbles in the clear poxy.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4765/...fb6f8a29_c.jpg20180216_101207 by WCA!, on Flickr

It is hard to get a photo of a clear coating but this is as close as I got.
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4757/...056dec61_c.jpg20180216_101216 by WCA!, on Flickr

And finally a shot showing progress from firwst print to final prototype
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4631/...41b5cec4_c.jpg20180216_101741 by WCA!, on Flickr

Lessons Learned
1) Get your printer set up properly before you start
2) Letters and script are a pain in the arse and need a better solution to get a reasonable finish.
3) Use decent paint - mine was a mixture of Simone sliver wheel paint, Rustoleum Painters touch applied by brush, some rattle can blue and green paint and some white 'appliance paint'.
4) Use a slower curing poxy.
5) Spend more time looking at the colours in the design. I don't like the red U, I think it should be green or blue.

6) Buy a badge from eBay (sorry couldn't resist)

I think there is too much detail for your printer.

How about producing an infill panel for the plastic engine cover.
Just raised ribs that could be painted silver and used to replace the BMW script?

:-)

I think 6 is the best option. This is as much about me playing with the 3D printer as anything.

Th printer coped okay with the level of detail once I simplified the script a bit. The bad finish is largely down to the mixture of different paints but mainly the bubbles in the Epoxy. I am going to try again with about half the harder and also apply gentle heat while curing to tempt the bubbles to the surface.

Engine infill is a god idea. I might well have a go at that.