Third Helping Hands

We utilized helping hands to stabilize and align parts while the glue dries. These have ball joints so you can position things in whatever orientation you need. With the wing span at this scale, those helping hands really did help out on this one.

We glued the parts together with super glue using with a fine tip – this gives finer control for those smaller pieces. We'll also used 220 grit sandpaper the level sections were parts meet, this will help the parts adhere evenly.  

We'll start by gluing the head to the body. Allow the parts to dry for at least 30 minutes and then continue gluing the tail to the body.

We printed the split version of each wing to eliminate the need for supports. We'll need glue each wing half together first, before gluing each completed wing to the body.

Add CPX

Finally on to the fire! 

You can power the Circuit Playground over USB, so you can plug it into a wall adapter or USB hub. The flame has a little slit on the back for a USB cable.

The dragon's center of gravity works much like one those balancing bird sculptures. The mouth has a little opening and fits over the tip of the flame so you don’t have to glue it, and it is easy to take it off but you wouldn’t want it to fall off.

Wall Flame

The wall flame part attaches to a flat head screw that is firmly mounted on a flat wall. The slot at the base of the flame slide onto the screw with the tip of the flame facing up. To attach the dragon, we'll gently pass the flame tip into the dragon's mouth and slightly rotate until they can both balance. To illuminate the flame, we used UV NeoPixels near the wall. The translucent PLA is UV reactive!