Alright, let me tell you about this little project I got into recently. You know WWE launched that new Speed Championship, right? The whole five-minute match thing on social media. Pretty cool concept. Anyway, I saw the belt they introduced, and I thought, “Huh, I kinda wanna make my own version.” Not like, an official replica, just something fun for myself, maybe a smaller desk version or something.
Getting Started
So, first things first, I had to figure out what I wanted it to look like. I didn’t want an exact copy. I looked up pictures of the real belt, just to get the basic idea – the shape, the ‘Speed’ text, the WWE logo. Then I just started sketching. Nothing fancy, just pencil and paper, trying different plate shapes. I wanted it to feel fast, you know? So I tried incorporating some jagged lines, maybe something like lightning bolts, but subtle.
After a few rough sketches, I kinda landed on a design I liked. It kept the main center plate idea but with my own little flair on the side plates. I decided I’d try to 3D print it. Seemed like the easiest way to get the shapes I wanted without needing crazy crafting skills.
Designing and Printing
I used Tinkercad – it’s free and pretty straightforward. I’m no expert designer, mind you. It was a lot of dragging shapes around, resizing things, trying to get the text looking decent. Took me a few hours, tweaking bits here and there. Getting the curve right for the main plate was a bit tricky, but I got something I was happy enough with.
Then came the printing part. I sliced the models and sent them to my 3D printer. I decided to print the main parts in a gold-ish filament I had. It wasn’t super shiny, more like a dull gold, but good enough. Man, 3D printing takes patience. The main plate took several hours. Of course, one of the side plates failed halfway through – filament got tangled or something. Had to restart that one. Typical.
- Printed main plate (gold filament)
- Printed two side plates (gold filament)
- Cleaned up the prints, removing supports and sanding rough edges
Putting It Together
Once the parts were printed and cleaned up a bit, I needed to add some color and put it on some kind of strap. I didn’t have fancy paints, just some basic acrylics.
Here’s what I did:
I painted the recessed areas black to make the details pop a bit more. Like the ‘Speed’ text and the background of the WWE logo. It wasn’t perfect, my hands aren’t the steadiest, but it looked better than just plain gold.
For the strap, I didn’t want to get complicated. I found a strip of black craft foam I had lying around. It’s flexible and easy to cut. I just measured roughly how long I wanted it, cut it out, and then used some strong super glue to attach the 3D printed plates onto the foam. I positioned the main plate in the center and the two side plates evenly spaced out.
The Final Look
So, what’s the end result? It’s definitely homemade! It’s not a perfect replica by any means. The paint job is a bit rough up close, and the craft foam strap is pretty basic. But honestly? I kinda dig it. It sits on my shelf, a cool little reminder of the Speed Championship and a fun afternoon project. It’s got that custom feel I wanted. It was just something fun to do, messing around with an idea and making a physical thing out of it. Didn’t cost much, mostly just time and some filament I already had. Pretty happy with how this little experiment turned out.
