The net, and the two halves of the press it is formed in. With Two halves ticked (the default) there is a second, mirrored net, and the Screw cap closure adds the cap and a clip. The sidebar's What you print list names every part in the download: print all of them.
The net is flat: the outline of whatever you upload, printed as a solid rim with the whole inside filled by a thin printed mesh. It prints flat on the bed in minutes, with no supports and no overhangs, because at this stage it is still a sheet.
The press is a matched pair, the way press-formed mesh is made. The cavity is a block with your shape sunk into its top, and a shallow pocket around the opening that the net's rim drops into, with small pins in its floor that go through matching holes in the rim. The plug is the same shape standing up on a flange, printed as its mirror image because you turn it over to use it: turned over side to side it lines up with the cavity, and you push it in, and the hot net is caught in the gap between the two, which is exactly one net thickness wide all the way down. Both are generated from the same traced outline as the net, so all three always match. These are the parts people otherwise have to model in CAD.
The shape arrives after printing. Warm the net with a heat gun until it goes limp, press it into the cavity with the plug, and it stretches into a curved net that holds its shape once it cools. The rim is printed taller than the net on purpose, so the outline stays stiff while the middle gives way.
For a ball, an apple or any hollow ornament, tick Two halves that fit together. You get a second net, the mirror image of the first, and each formed half is a bowl whose open side is the top of its rim, so the two bowls close rim to rim. Pick how they hold together:
Form both nets in the same press, flat (bed) side down both times. With printed pins the plug's flange has a hole over every pin, so it still sits flat on the front net. If your outline is not symmetric the back half is a genuinely different shape, and the download includes a second, mirrored press for it; the sidebar tells you when that happens.
| Setting | What it changes |
|---|---|
| Mesh thickness | The forming window. Around 1mm softens quickly and evenly. Much thicker and the rim reaches forming temperature before the mesh does. |
| Cell size | How closely the mesh follows detail. Fine cells drape over a curve; coarse cells bridge across it and leave flats. |
| Strut width | How much stretch each strand survives. Two to three nozzle widths, so every strut prints as solid extrusion rather than a thin under-filled line. |
| Frame width | How much the outline resists the heat: a narrow rim distorts along with the mesh, which is occasionally what you want. It also moves the press, because the shaped part starts where the rim ends, so a wider frame gives a smaller shape and stretches the mesh further. |
| Form depth | How far the mesh has to stretch. The mesh gains area going into the press and every bit of that comes out of its own thickness, so a printed 1 mm mesh can arrive at 0.9 mm or at 0.4 mm depending on the depth and the shape. The sidebar warns you as soon as it drops under 0.6 mm. |
| Shape | How hard the stretch is, at the same depth. A cone hugs the flat and barely stretches anything; a plateau drags the mesh over a rim and across a full flat top and asks the most of it. |
| Wall angle | How easily the cooled mesh lifts out of the press. Three degrees is the floor; more is safer on a deep form. A cone has no slider for it: it closes to a point, so its angle comes out of the depth and your outline, and the sidebar reports what it built. |
Either it was too cold in places, or the struts are too thin for the amount of stretch. Warm it for longer at a greater distance so the heat reaches the middle of the sheet, and raise the strut width or the mesh thickness a little.
The stretching mesh pulls the rim inward, and on a shape with lobes or points each stretch of rim bends in and lifts. The pins in the pocket are what hold it: files made before 24 September 2026 have no pins, so download them again. Then keep the plug pressed down until the mesh is cool, keep the heat on the middle rather than the rim, and on a spiky outline give it a wider frame. If your shape has a back half, the back mesh goes in the back cavity: it is the mirror image and will not sit in the front one.
Too much heat aimed at the edge. Work the gun over the middle and let conduction do the rest, and raise the frame width or height so there is more material holding the outline.
Released too early. The part has to cool fully under pressure. A quick pass with compressed air or a damp cloth over the pressed mesh sets it in seconds.
The wall angle is too shallow for how deep the form is. A cooled mesh shrinks onto whatever it was pressed over, and only the taper lets it slide off. Raise the wall angle, or lower the depth. On a cone there is no wall-angle slider, so lower the depth or switch to a dome.
Too deep a draw for that outline. The mesh has to cover more area than it started with, and all of that comes out of its thickness. The sidebar warns you when it drops under about 0.6 mm, which is where the struts snap instead of stretching. Lower the depth, raise the mesh thickness, or pick a shape that closes in less sharply.