The 3D Printed Skyrim Nightingale Bow is Printed in 12 Pieces

I have a younger cousin who is absolutely obsessed with the action role-playing video game called The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Whenever I go over to see him, he is glued to his Playstation 3 playing this very intriguing game. I have joined him on occasion, but admittedly when it comes to video games I’m not exactly someone you would want on your side. I try to impress my cousin the best I can when I do play, but usually I just end up embarrassing myself.

I do own a 3D printer though, so whenever little objects from Skyrim pop up on Thingiverse or Youmagine, I immediately download and 3D print them for my cousin, and he is usually pretty excited. He even has an entire shelf in his bedroom dedicated to 3D printed Skyrim doodads from Uncle Eddie.

You can only imagine how excited I was when I was contacted by MyMiniFactory and they told me about the ‘Nightingale Bow’ from Skyrim, that had been incredibly designed by a Spanish man named Marco Antonio Pérez Morata.

The Nightingale Bow, for those of you like me who aren’t all that up-to-date on the latest video games, is an archery weapon found in the Skyrim video game. It is a reward that is gifted to the Dragonborn by Karliah, after they finish off the Thieves’ Guild quest. Morata decided to create it after he saw a request for the weapon pop up on the MyMiniFactory jobs board. Having been familiar with the weapon, he decided to try his hand at designing it.

Morata tells 3DPrint.com that it took him about 7-8 hours to design using SolidWorks, and he had it printed out in 12 separate pieces on a MakerBot Replicator 2 3D printer. In all, he estimates that it took about 58 hours of print time to complete.

“I split the model up so that it would require very little post processing,” Morata tells 3DPrint.com. “It is split up like a jigsaw so that you can take it straight from the print bed and assemble the pieces. I split the bow in half as not to lose too much detail, but kept the two end pieces as one to give the model more rigidity. I did end up gluing the two halves together just to ensure a solid build.”

Another unique feature about this bow, in sticking with the 3D printing theme, is that even the string that the bow is strung with is made with 3D printer filament. In fact, Morata used flexible NinjaFlex filament in place of regular bow string. As for shooting the bow, Morata has not yet tested it, but he believes it should be able to shoot an arrow quite well.

“Obviously not as powerful as a real bow but it will do the job to hit a colleague,” he jokes.

Morata has made the design files for the bow available on MyMiniFactory, and he recommends printing them out using a 0.2mm layer height with 8% infill. In all, the print job will use about half a spool of filament (578 grams).  I know that when I get some time, this will be a project that is at the very top of my ‘to do’ list.

What do you think? Will you be 3D printing this incredible Nightingale Bow? Discuss in the 3D Printed Skyrim Bow forum thread on 3DPB.com.