Hey all, Got another 'what would you do?' question for you all. I've printed a lot of my models in stainless steel successfully. The ones that print successfully, I post publicly. However, it's recently occurred to me that I don't know that just because it prints in Stainless Steel, that's no reason to assume it prints in any other material. I mean, it seems like a pretty safe bet - Stainless Steel strikes me as being the most unwieldy and troublesome of the materials available - but I'm still not sure. So I'll ask everyone here - if I know it prints in stainless steel, would you recommend making it available ONLY in stainless steel until I've tested it in the other materials as well? As it stands, I make most of my pendants available in white and flexible, sandstone, stainless steel (all the finishes), and silver/glossy silver. Should I make it unavailable in the untested materials? Thanks in advance!
Generally speaking, if it prints in stainless then it will print in any material except maybe Ceramics and Full Colour Sandstone. However, depending on the geometry the model may print ok in Stainless but fail in Silver. Paul [hr]stop4stuff Modeller for hireShapeways ShopTwitterYouTube[hr]
Specifically speaking, each material is different. WSF is less demanding than steel, neither is as stringent as ceramic, but there are no shortcuts to familiarizing yourself with each material's nature and design limits. That said, I make models available in materials I haven't tested all the time: I try to consider the design limits case by case and do what seems reasonable. Sometimes I get a reject on the less popular ones, and I just strike that material. Nobody's ever gotten exercised about it, and I figure the plus to customers of having more choices outweighs the occasional misfire. i.competitive service took the other road on this, at that store you can't put an item up for sale in a material until you've bought a proof. Does that decision bring them more customers? Better quality models? I don't know, but I don't find that I maintain my shop there. It's not so much that it wouldn't be profitable -- though it would perforce be slower to make money -- as that it's too much work.