Year of the Tiger Chinese New Year Decorations

Note: I will be updating this model for multi-colour in the new year. This is an import of an old design of mine on Thingiverse.

Happy Year of the Tiger!

Continuing my Chinese (Lunar) New Year series, I present Year of the Tiger decorations.

This year, I've modified my Year of the Rat design to feature tigers instead. And, for ease of finding all the files, I've also included the same accessories including an endless knot, a Fú (福) charm, and a split ring to join everything together.

If you print any of the decorations, please post a make; I'd love to see it! :)

P.S. The Chinese character Fú (福) means "fortune" or "good luck." If it is displayed upside-down, it means "good luck arrives."

P.P.S. While I was fixated on designing the tiger aspect of the decorations, I didn't notice that I had mirrored the Fú character incorrectly. The files are now correct but the photographs still need updating.

General Printing Notes

• Printed at .2 layer height except as noted below. No support needed.
• Filament: Filament: 1.75mm PLA in CC3D ZHUOPU Red Silk and Hatchbox Gold
• Printer: Ender 3
• To print with two colours as shown, change filament around layer 7 (double check in your slicer to see which layer works best for your printer). If you don't know how to change colours mid-print, the following links are good places to start: Cura 4.8+ filament swap instructions using post-processing script or modifying gcode outside of slicer.

File Naming Conventions

Most differences between the files are the number of hangers. This way they can be combined as you wish or simply used as coasters.

The number of hangers are indicated by file names as follows:

• filename-0h.stl (no hangers)
• filename-1h.stl (top hanger only)
• filename-2h (top and bottom hanger)

Since there are a lot of STLs, it may be quicker to just download only the ones you want from the Thing Files page.

Split Ring

This file is the trickiest to print and it might not be worth your time. If you have string or jump rings on hand, that might be your better option.

That said, after much model/slicer tweaks, I was able to get repeatable results with my Ender 3. They work quite well for their purpose. Here are the Cura settings I used:

• Layer height: .28 (any lower and the print will fuse too much)
• Print speed: 10 mm/s
• No support
• No part cooling

You should be able to split the ring apart with a fingernail. Other settings that may help with different machines include printing the outer wall before the inner, and/or reducing flow.