Angle of attack

This week I've been printing the Mk3 version of my RepRap'd Milestag gun. This version is only aesthetically different from the Mk2 in that it has a tapered barrel mount with dummy barrel cooling:



The RepRap challenge here is the tapered section. I need to print this part:



There are 3 ways I can do this:

1. Vertically



The problem here is that there are several sections that are orthogonal to the Z axis. The only way to print these is to have either support material or 45 degree angles leading up to them. Both are wasteful and time consuming.


2. Support material




I could chose to print the part with support material. This will of course take longer and use more ABS filament.


3. Rotate the part

I decided the best way to print this was to rotate the part so that the largest surface was parallel to the bed.




I had concerns that the edges or the faces orthogonal to the barrel axis might not mate very well. I was not disappointed:



Here you can see how well the faces that were angled to the bed match up: