Experimenting with 3D Printing Wood PLA

I recently purchased some Wood PLA and made a few small projects with it. Wood PLA is like regular PLA 3D printer filament, except around 30% of it is made of wood particles. This results in a slightly weaker plastic that looks and smells somewhat like wood. I modeled new versions of the trains from the popular board game colt express, 3D printed them to replace the cardboard trains that came with the game and painted the wood PLA with gel stain to make it look more like real wood.

To make the models look more like wood I scuffed them up with 30 grit sandpaper and painted them using Minwax Rosemary Gel Stain. I was pretty happy with the results, one of my friends even thought the 3D prints were actual wood. Files are available here. 

Two 3D prints right off the bed, a scuffed up print, and a painted print

Fully painted passenger car

I added magnets to hold the trains together

While the wood PLA was in the printer I figured I might as well print some more files so I also printed and painted a baby Groot flower pot, which turned really well.