Mintfin

An axolotl with a dragon's back: 8 ribbed segments, a coral frill at each cheek, and a fan tail standing 3.7 in off the plate.

The Mintfin set seen from above and to one side: a mint segmented creature with grey spine cones, coral gills and a coral fan tail, a beige face plate lying behind it, and a small socket plate with two coral ball studs beside it.
The listing's own view of the set — the creature, the spare face plate lying behind the body, and the coupon with its 2 ball studs at the right. 5.2 × 6.6 × 3.7 in overall.

Turn it over.

One plate

Everything here comes off a single build plate: the creature, its second face, and the coupon laid out beside it.

The face

The face is its own plate, seated in a lipped opening in the head. Eyes, nostrils and mouth stand proud of the surface rather than being cut into it.

The back

8 ribbed segments run from the shoulders to the tail, each carrying a 12 mm spike on its crest.

The tail

The tail lifts clear of the body and opens into a fan — the high point of the whole model at 3.7 in.

The coupon

Set down beside the creature: a socket split by 4 relief slits, a magnet pocket next to it, and 2 ball studs on square shanks.

All of it

Back where it started: one body, 3.8 oz of it, with the spare face and the coupon at its side.

An elevation and a plan

Two drawings tell you more about this shape than any single angle of it. From the side you read the run of the back; from above you read what the build plate has to hold.

Side elevation of Mintfin: rounded head at the left, a run of ribbed segments with cones along the crest, four stubby legs, and a fan tail rising at the right. The coupon pieces lie on the ground at the lower right.
Side elevation, rendered from the model the listing was measured from.
  • Face plateA bean-shaped plate seated in a lipped opening. The eyes, nostrils and mouth are raised off it, not engraved into it.
  • Horns3 above the brow, the middle one the shortest of them.
  • Spikes8 cones, one on each segment crest, 12 mm from base to point.
  • Legs4 of them, 12 claws between them, all part of the same continuous body.
  • Fan tailTwo coral halves opening into a fan; nothing else in the set stands as high.
Plan view looking straight down: the creature runs down the middle with its gills spread at the bottom, the spare face plate lies at the top left, and the coupon plate with two ball studs sits at the top right.
Plan view, looking straight down at the set.

What the plate has to hold

The set occupies 133 × 169 mm of bed. The creature runs down the middle with its gills spread at the head end, the spare face lies off one shoulder and the coupon sits off the opposite hip, its 2 studs beside it.

Nothing in the set is nested inside anything else, so what you see here is what the bed has to clear.

Two faces

One is fitted and one is not. Both are cut to the same outline, so the head takes either.

Mintfin seen head-on: a wide rounded face plate with two large raised eyes and a smiling mouth, three horns above, and branched gill fans spreading to both sides.
Fitted: the happy plate, with the frill of gills spread behind it and 3 horns above.
The spare face plate lying flat on the ground: a rounded bean-shaped sheet with two closed eyelid curves, two small nostril dots and a curved mouth, all raised from its surface.
Loose beside the body: the sleepy plate, its closed lids and mouth raised off a sheet 2.6 mm thick.

The coupon

Mintfin leans on two fits: a ball that has to snap into a socket and stay there, and a magnet that has to sit in its pocket without rattling.

Neither is a thing you can judge by looking at it. A snap fit is decided by your nozzle, your filament and how your machine handles a small round hole — which is why the set carries a coupon: a 28 × 18 mm plate holding one socket and one magnet pocket, and 2 ball studs to try in them.

The coupon pieces on the ground: a small rectangular plate carrying a slotted cylindrical socket and a round recess, with two ball studs on square shanks lying beside it.
The three pieces as the plate leaves them: the socket plate and its 2 studs, with the spare face lying behind.
Close view of the socket: a cylindrical collar split into four fingers by relief slits, with a spherical seat inside it, standing on a plate next to a shallow circular pocket.
4 slits through the collar, a spherical seat inside it, and the magnet pocket recessed into the plate alongside.

Print this corner first

Mintfin is a prototype, and the coupon is the honest part of it. The geometry has been modelled, sliced and measured; it has not yet been printed and proved. The socket housing is 2 mm of wall nominal and the slits are there to let the collar open as a ball goes past.

Run that corner of the plate on its own, push a stud into the socket, drop a magnet in the pocket — and you will know what your machine will make of the creature before you give it 11.4 hours.

What it measures

Overall size
5.2 × 6.6 × 3.7 in
Weight
3.8 oz
Print time
11.4 h
Build plate needed
133 × 169 mm
Layer height
0.2 mm
Nozzle
0.4 mm
Infill
15%
Walls
2 perimeters
Face plates
2
Sliced in
PETG

Every figure here came from slicing this model, not from estimating against a similar one. Weight and time are what that slice reported for PETG at 0.2 mm layers.