The Shapeways Blog: 3D Printing News & Innovation
Shapeways Blog
Friday, October 7. 2011
3D model polisher in action
Hi community, I have asked our head polisher Michel to explain more
about the polishing process used for our Polished White Strong and Flexible 3D prints.
One of our core values is fun, Michel is it fun working with the polisher?
Yes it is, as long as the small stones don’t get stuck inside bracelets
and other stuff J
Do you have a special name for the two polishers?
No actually we don’t just the small and the big polisher…No big beast or something similar, but if you can come up with other names you can comment on this blog.
On average how much time a day do you spend on polishing?
Really depends on the amount of orders coming in from our production, I’d say 1 to 2 hours a day on average. And in total the models go in the polisher for about 3 hours. We’ll put in around 50 models but we’ve had around 200 models in it as well so it really depends on the kind of models.
What material is in the polisher?
Is it ceramics combined with water. The models usually get some time to dry, it goes quite fast though so no need to let them dry for a long period of time.
When do you make the call to use the small polisher, is that based on dimension. And if yes, what dimensions or just the tiniest parts (connections or puzzles)?
I usually only do the really small parts in the small polisher because
they’ll get lost/squashed in the big one. Also when models look very fragile I
usually put them in the small one (if they fit that is).
Do you have additional information that you want to share?
Keep the polished models coming 
Comments
How long does the polishing take?
@Janis and George: This is our biggest polisher. For WSF Polished we have a Max Bounding Box of 15 x 15 x 15 cm
