Courtyard Castle

A castle is a stack of terraces, each one carried by the one below it. A printer is a machine that stacks. This one is drawn so the two are the same act: 672 courses of plastic, 12.2 hours, and it lifts off the plate whole — gate, court, round keep, hall and both red roofs, with nothing to assemble and nothing holding it up.

5.3 in
tall
6.6 oz
weight
12.2 h
on the plate
672
courses at 0.2 mm
The printed castle on a dark build plate: a stepped stone base with an arched gateway, a battlemented terrace above it, and a round keep, a red-roofed hall and a red-roofed watchtower on top.

Climb it the way the nozzle did.

The footprint

It begins as 106 × 96 mm of outline, drawn twice around and filled in. Two blocks, though, not one — the gap between them is the gateway, open from the very first course.

The arch closes itself

The passage is 18 mm wide and runs the full 96 mm through the base. Its pointed head steps inward a course at a time until the last open gap, on layer 143, measures 0.24 mm — narrower than the 0.4 mm nozzle that walks across it. Nothing is printed inside the opening to hold it up.

Every level steps back

The gate terrace finishes at layer 196, and the court above starts well inside its edge. No sloped face on the model leans further than 39.8° off vertical, and only 11 courses out of 672 have to reach over air at all — window heads, a roof eave — each bridged in a single pass. That is why it slices with supports switched off.

The court

At layer 352 the outline breaks into four: a round keep, a square watchtower, a hall, and the battlemented wall around the yard they share. Three separate buildings from here up, still one object.

Merlons, then air

The keep's crown leaves the ring wall as 8 separate blocks with gaps between them. Count the battlements on the whole castle and there are 50: 29 around the gate terrace, 13 around the court, 8 up here.

Layer 672

The last course is the point of the watchtower roof, 5.3 in above the plate. 12.2 hours after the first line, and the only thing left to do is lift it off.

Four plans, off its own toolpath

Not drawings of the print — the print. Four layers lifted straight out of the sliced file, every stroke one extrusion at its real 0.45 mm width, all four drawn at the same scale. Watch the castle narrow as it climbs: that is the entire reason it needs no supports.

Plan of the first layer: two solid blocks separated by a straight gap, inside a rectangular outline.
Layer 1, 0.25 mmTwo blocks, and the gateway between them.
Plan at the top of the gate arch: one filled rectangle with a faint seam where the two sides of the arch met.
Layer 144, 28.85 mmThe arch has met itself. One slab from here up.
Plan of the court: a rounded terrace outline holding a circle, a square and a rectangle — the keep, the watchtower and the hall.
Layer 352, 70.45 mmKeep, watchtower, hall, and the wall around the yard.
Plan near the top: eight small blocks in a ring beside one small square.
Layer 590, 118.05 mmThe crown's 8 merlons, and the watchtower roof.
The gate wall of the printed castle straight on: a pointed arch in a stepped stone face, a row of square battlements across the top, the round keep rising behind.

A tunnel, not a recess

The gateway runs the full 96 mm depth of the base and opens again on the far side: 18 mm across, 28.8 mm to the point of the arch. Until layer 144 the base is printing as two separate blocks, and the two only become one castle when the arch finally meets itself.

Looking down into the castle's upper yard: a red gable roof over the hall, a red pyramid roof on the watchtower, and the round keep's crown of merlons.

The yard is real floor

The hall, the watchtower and the keep stand on the upper terrace with room to walk between them, inside a wall of 13 merlons.

The round keep close up, banded by horizontal steps and crowned with separate square merlons, with the two red roofs behind it.

The keep is a cylinder

Stepped where each terrace passes it, and finished with a ring of 8 merlons printed with air between them — the last time on the way up that the outline breaks into separate pieces.

The object

Every number here was measured rather than estimated: the geometry off the mesh that goes to the printer, the weight, the hours and the course count off prusa-slicer over that same file, with supports switched off.

5.3 inches of castle, 6.6 oz in the hand, and not one glued joint.

Overall
4.2 × 3.8 × 5.3 in
Weight
6.6 oz
Printed parts
1
Time on the plate
12.2 h
Courses
672 at 0.2 mm
Nozzle
0.4 mm
Walls
2 perimeters, 0.9 mm
Infill
15%
Supports
None
Overhangs
39.8° max, 11 bridged courses
Filament
61.1 m, sliced in PETG
Footprint
106 × 96 mm, clears a 180 mm bed