Make a Custom Frisbee

My father-in-law is really into Frisbees (disc golf, freestyle Frisbee, pretty much anything Frisbee related) and being the man who married his youngest daughter I thought making a custom Frisbee for him might get me some brownie points. But before I make him one, I first needed to make sure I could even make one and if I could, would it even work well.

Now that I have a 3d printer, it was my first choice for making the disc. I toyed with the idea of making a wood one that I could turn on my lathe but I don't think I can fit very large diameter pieces on it. I may end up trying it in the future. But for now I'll stick with the 3d printer.

I tried to look all over the internet but I couldn't find the dimensions for any brand or size Frisbee (or generic brand flying disc). The best I could find was the chart above from here that had section views of various older discs. From this I had to eye ball the dimensions to make mine close. Due to my print bed size, I could only make a disc that was 8 inched in diameter. This size would work well for a disc golf disc (mine could almost be considered a putter but I was aiming towards a standard disc shape) but I had to work with what I had. It would just be a little on the small side.

I used SolidWorks to create my disc shape. My dimensioning isn't great on this model so I would't recommend trying to replicate the exact shape. Just try to make it look close to the shapes in the chart above.

Once I had the basic shape, I just cut out the letters I wanted. You could do any letters or even symbol you want as long as you have no floating pieces. I recommend using a stencil font for letters as you will not have any problems with losing part of the letters.

For those of you who don't want to make your own model, I have provided a Step file for the basic disc shape, STL files for the basic disc and for the one with the text, and I have also imported it into Tinkercad and you can find that model here.

• If you have a modeling software then you can use the Step file.
• If you just want to print the basic one or the instructables text one then you can use the STL files.
• If you don't have a modeling software but still want to edit it then you can access the Tinkercad model and edit it in there.

Now That I had the model all ready to go it was time to convert it to g-code so that I could print it. I have a Prusa 3d printer so I used the Slic3r program they recommend.

Now to print it. I used my Prusa MK3 printer to make this. I printed at 0.2 mm resolution with a 0.4 mm tip and with 20% infill. I also used supports for this as curvature of the disc created a lot of overhang. This ended up taking about 11 and a half hours to print.

After I cleaned off the supports and cleaned up the letters a little bit it was now ready to be tested. Overall it ended up printing great. Because of the large overhang it ended up looking a little nasty on the top side of the disc.

Now to just go outside and see how it flies. Even though my measurements weren't exactly the same as the name brand Frisbee it still flew just fine. From the chart showing the different disc shapes I could tell that the shape can vary and still be a decent disc. So, no need to worry if you design one and it is shaped a little different.

As you could see everything worked great. The only issue I have is the finish quality as the one I will make for my father-in-law should probably be nicer than this. To get a better finish I figured I'd try sanding it. I only did a quick sanding but from the pictures you can see it really improved the look and finish of it. Now I know that if I need a better finish for the next one that will be for my father-in-law I can spend some time sanding and get it to a nice finish.

Hopefully this was helpful to you and you will be able to make your very own customizable one for yourself.