Three Color Archimedean Solids

Three of the thirteen Archimedean solids have three types of faces and thus look best when printed in three colors. The method adopted here prints one or two sets of faces separately as "chips" which are attached to a central form. The image at the left shows a truncated cuboctahedron with the chips necesary to make a three colored solid.

If two sets of faces are printed and attached the method works with all printers. If a "dualstrusion" printer is available the form can have two colors and only a single set of chips needs to be attached.

The Archimedean solids with three types of faces are: 1) truncated cuboctahedron, 2) rhombicosidodecahedron, and 3) truncated icosidodecahedron. The image at the lower left shows the three forms; the rhombicosidodecahedron appears twice with different colorings.

Four stl files are included for printing the truncated cuboctahedron. They are:

t_cuboctahedron_less_faces4_and6.stl
trunc_cuboctahedron_faces4.stl
t_cuboctahedron_chips_squa