Hey guys, long time lurker here. Just wanted to share a project I've been working on. My wife and I enjoy going to anime cons and comicons and cosplaying. My wife loves Kirby and wanted to do a Kirby cosplay, so we thought this would be a good opportunity to try making our own props.

She got me a 3d printer last year for my birthday, so I've been doing a lot of tinkering with it lately. I haven't modded it, but I have installed klipper and also a glass build plate.

She found a model for a hammer that she liked and decided to buy the files. Not sure if I'm able to post links here, but just look up Stylized King Dedede Hammer and you'll find it (I know it's technically Dedede not Kirby, but close enough).

I printed all the parts with 4 walls. This allows me to be able to sand more without compromising strength. Can't remember the infill % on the handle, but I did 5% gyroid on the hammer head. The handle was 6 pieces, and hammer head was 8 pieces. Each hammer head piece took about 15 hours to print with 0.2 mm layer height. I used Polymaker COSPLA Version A. It's supposed to be stronger than normal PLA and also easily sandable. The prop is definitely strong and was pretty easy to sand. I used a mouse sander for the larger areas and hand sanded for the more detailed parts. You just can't stay in the same place too long with the mouse sander or it can melt since it is plastic. There is a wood dowel going down the length of the hammer in the middle for extra strength.

I used Weld-On Acrylic Plastic Cement to glue the pieces and bondo to fill in the larger gaps. I did a first pass sanding the PLA directly, then I sprayed with 2 in 1 automotive filler and sandable primer. I then wet-sanded, dried, and spray painted. I was going to do a clear coat, but I ran out of time and wanted to touch up some areas at a later date before clear coating.

I'm glad how it turned out for my first prop. My wife might want a scaled down version because it's definitely a little heavy to be carrying around a con all day haha.