From today until the 31st of March you can order your Ringpoems 3D printed in bronze.
Yep, bronze.
You can now make your own bronze sculpture in a few minutes. Your words, thoughts, ideas, poems, declaration of love: in bronze.
Just go to the Ringpoem Creator, type in the words of your choosing, choose a font, then order it for $49 including shipping and tax.
Then you will get your message: 3D printed in bronze.
I know I seem to be repeating myself but: WOW. That is pretty darn amazing right? We can now, for a limited time, let anyone everywhere create a metal 3D printed object that they get to design.
If there is demand for the Ringpoems we will see if we can extend this process to the rest of the models on the site. But, hold your horses because we’re ironing out some kinks with that at the moment. So we can not guarantee that.
So how does it work? An inkjet head deposits binding material on the build tray. The build tray is lowered. A very thin layer of powdered metal is 
spread over the build platform. In this case the powdered metal used is Stainless Steel. This continues layer by layer until the part is built. Then the part is removed from the metal powder that has not been bound by the binding material. The last step is to heat the part and infuse it with bronze. And presto you have a 3D printed metal part.
The process leaves you with a heavy, stainless steel and reddish bronze Ringpoem. Depending on how long you make your text it will be around 4.5 by 4.5 by 4.5cm and 3mm thick. It feels and looks smooth. It also feels nice and cold to the touch and the material is strong. The process is much much much cheaper than titanium 3D printing. I think its amazing that you can now 3D print in the same material roman swords are made of, the same material that Henry Moore made his sculptures are made of! Enough of this though, I’m going to go make a bronze 3D printed sculpture!!!!
If this is not the coolest thing you have read all day please retweet our message on twitter telling us what you have seen today that is
cooler than our Bronze Ringpoem. If this is the coolest thing you’ve seen all day then please also retweet this message with a comment. The best answer will get a free Bronze Ringpoem of their all time favorite tweet. A twitter tweet 3D printed in bronze!
That’s pretty cool. But…napkin ring. I don’t use napkin rings. Is there any way that could be made in other, larger, sizes? I’m thinking Dark Age style arm-ring here.
Jane,
With the current Creator tool it is not possible. If you really really want it, I can see what I can do. So, make a Bronze Ringpoem, save it and email me if you want one.
It will be really heavy though. and I can not guarantee that I can make it happen but I’m willing to try.
Joris
I’ll give the wording some thought and possibly get back to you – thanks. Good to know it’s at least theoretically possible.
If more people would like to have a bracelet, please let me know via email.
Joris
Hi Joris
i would be interested in a bracelet.
with the words Kay Blue Sky Ocean
Thanks
Peter
again if you sell your individual letters in bulk i would be interested, i live in Cyprus Europe.
I like the armband idea. What is your email? 🙂
Never mind… I see it now! 🙂
Hi Jane,
I use the ring poem to put a little light in as a decoration on a cabinet. So napkin ring is not the only option. There must be a lot more possibilities. But I agree, I really like the idea of a bracelet.
Marleen
Wow, that is cool!!!
As a jewelery/ring designer I would love to see this as an option for my own designs. This would save me a lot of steps in getting from design to metal object. At the moment I go from printed model to wax model to silver or gold model.
Let’s hope this will be possible in the near future.
Steven,
we hope so too, we first have to see if there is demand for the material. We are also testing out different shapes and finishes to see if it works.
Joris
Thanks.
If you want some actual shapes from my side, let me know.
Steven
Sounds like the ProMetal process, am I right? As used by Bathsheba Grossman?
Great stuff, I hope you can iron out the kinks to offer this permanently for custom designs as well. By the sound of it this will be cheaper than DMLS.
Is it possible to get it as pure SS rather than bronze?
James,
no I’m afraid it is not, the process works by taking stainless steel and infusing it with bronze so it will always have a bronze coating.
You could remove the outer coating with a Dremel tool if you would like(took us about 20min) but ‘out of the box’ it wil always come with the bronze outer layer.
Joris
The armband sounds cool, but I was thinking the other direction: would it be possible to make a ring poem small enough to be worn on a finger?
That would be more difficult since we risk making the resulting model non-manifold. But, again, we’re interested in finding out what you guys want.
So if you want one, make a Ringpoem, send me the link, size in CM, and I’ll see what I can do by hand.
Joris
Neat stuff!
Out of curiosity, which machine do you use to make these? Are there any environmental concerns when working with this material?
Regards,
Chris
I”m not allowed to disclose that right now.
The environmental concerns would be similar to if one were to use traditional metalworking processes. Although you would tend to have less waste with this process.
hi joris
i think your design is fantastic- i really like the idea of the armband.
i dont suppose you sell the letters as bulk buy do you? i would love to use them in my artwork. not welded together just seperate letters, do you do numbers too?
what sizes can you do?
anyway really cool stuff joris,
10/10 go to the top of the class.
peter
re: “If there is demand for the Ringpoems we will see if we can extend this process to the rest of the models on the site. ”
Hmm, I should think you would have more possbility of creating and evaluating demand by offering it more widely than through the creator ring-poem. I’m not really interested in a $49 napkin ring 🙂 But I would be interested in a $50 sculpture.
-Whystler
I immediately assumed these were rings for wearing and thought they would make an incredible alternative wedding ring. Something that meant something to the couple could be used, a poem, the proposal, etc. Seems to me it would be wildly popular.
Shelley,
I think so too, are there more people that would agree?
Further, if you figure out how to reduce the poems to finger ring size, I will buy some!
I just realized too that if these were possible to have made as finger-sized rings to wear I have a large group of people as clients that would love to have meaningful words to them to buy as rings to wear. If you get these to ring size, we should talk about a larger order.
Regarding jewelry – it certainly depends on whether wearing this material against your skin will cause it to turn green (and, of course, any other health implications).
I’ll certainly cast my “YES!” vote for being able to print sculptures and other custom designs from the Shapeways site.
I love the bronze ‘napkin ring’… Will look fantastic with a tealight inside (I don’t use napkin rings). Can’t wait to get a trio of these for my kitchen table.