Metal Jewelery Tests

I got a bunch of metal jewelry bits back today. Let's start with the stuff that Shapeways made directly with Steel:



This a group of pictures of the Crone Pendant and the Dragon's Head Pendant, both printed through Shapeways. They are rough, but still look very good. And the price certainly makes up rough look.



This is a my Ring of Souls, printed through a company called Pro Metal. I got rather impatient with the delays in testing my parts for Steel printing, so I ordered this from another company. I had hoped they had higher resolution technology, but they did not. This cost me $100, and looks the same as a $27 would have looked through Shapeways. It took them just as long to do as well, at about 3 weeks.

I'm currently looking into a super-high rez wax print using the Solidscape printers I mentioned in another forum post. When I see those results, I'll share them. If it turns out well, maybe Shapeways will consider adding a Solidscape machine to their inventory. Considering the improvement in detail and smoothness, maybe Silver casting might come back to Shapeways as well!



This image will interest those of you interested in casting the most. This is the 1st of 3 items I had printed in Transparent Detail by Shapeways, and then had a Jeweler cast in Silver.

According to the Jeweler, he was able to pour the plaster directly around the plastic and burn out the plastic directly without created a Wax mold first and then casting from that. The downside is the very poor resolution of the print, coupled with the rough nature of the material, helped create alot of bubbles in the plaster. I think all of the lines didn't help either. The result was alot of damage to the pattern.

I'm hoping they can get around the bubble issue with a few more test prints. The nature of the ring should make a rough material it's made from a non-issue, because the jeweler is basically sanding off the top edge to make the pattern shine, well the lower recesses should be dark and less visible.

The other 2 objects turned out very well and the Jeweler used them to make molds that will allow more copies to be made in the future. I'm going to update the items in my Shapeways store with pictures and comments to indicate that they can buy Silver versions from me directly.

I won't have better pictures until tomorrow, but here's some fuzzy pictures of the other two items I had caste in Silver.

This is the Hand Ring holding the Star Sapphire:


This is the Crone Pendant, with and without the Star Sapphire eyes set in it:

So far which technology to you gives you the best looking jewelery?

And if you compare the prices which one is best for you?

Joris

Right now my ability to produce detailed pieces seems questionable, as I don't have the resolution necessary for small pieces. I'm hoping the Wax Solidscape printer will fix that, but since I haven't seen the wax print yet, it's hard to tell.

The best solution would be if Shapeways both had high resolution wax printers, as well as casting. The fine detail should allow for smoother prints without excessive hand polishing. Of course, I won't get to test that theory until I've had the Solidscape wax caste in silver.

Right now Shapeways metal prints are certainly the most affordable, but the roughness and fragility during the "green" phase greatly limits what I can do with them.

Any clue about Envisiontec WIC100? That was the other system mentioned at the same time than the (brittle) Solidscape one. I'm following all your experiments with attention as I'm interested in similar output quality than jewelery, but "shippable" (wax doesn't sound very compatible with that) and even better if usable as is (think plastic like results).

The Solidscape wax hasn't arrived yet, but a small ring floating around inside a large box will most likely arrive intact. I'll post the results and pictures as soon as the wax arrives, as well as when it's cast, if all goes well. I got my fingers crossed!

I just got back the casting done with the Solidscape Wax print. The SolidScape prints product models 5,000 by 5,000 dpi (25 Million dots for ever 1" layer), so they are extremely more detailed then the processes currently offered by Shapeways.

Compare these shots of the Ring of Souls compared to the Shapeways current metal printed version show above:







The Wax print was shipped to me in a simple cotton lined ring box, inside of a bubble padded envelope, and arrived with no damage. There's no reason Shapeways couldn't make these kind of prints available to us. They are every bit as durable as transparent plastic, and have similar melting points. But the level of detail with the Solidscape print is UNREAL.

When casting in silver, there is no better way currently available to print a small design.

Pretty good indeed. In their FAQ they say the melting points are 95-110C for one of their materials and 49-70 for the other. A data sheet in third party site gives a slight higher temp of 105-115C (older formula?) and with some extra investigation it seems the low temperature one is just for support. High temp one would do great for scale miniatures with this detail level and based in your description of "plastic" (vs "brittle" in other thread).

Hey, what did it cost you to output your ring on the Solidscape machine? I'd really love to see Shapeways offer that as an option.

What I paid for that wax print was criminal, $100. I'd have to imagine Shapeways could do it for much less.

On top of that, I paid another $120 for the casting, which took 4 weeks to complete. So that ring there is quite an expensive bit of jewelery.

YIKES! thassalot

-Whystler

Yeah, I'm sure Shapeways could do it much more efficiently and cheaper. Here's hoping that they do so soon!

althoguht if you where making more than one of them you could use the wax print to make a mold for more waxes to be cast so that those new waxes can be used to cast th silver.

not actualy that hard to do at home with an oven and blowtorch.

time line:

get wax print
make silicone mold of wax print
use mold to cast new wax
add sprews to wax cast
cast ring and sprews in good plaster
slowly heat cast in overn
mealt silver in porceline/terricotta with blowtorch.
take hot cast out of overn (should be VERRY hot)
pour silver into sprew hole till it comes out of vent hole
leave to cool over night
gently chip away most of plaster
clean ring with tothbrush and water
polish/destress as desired


(ive been dooing my reserch, and silver isnt actualy that expencive to buy for casting, both fine[999] and sterling[925])

The problem with casting such a detailed and complex item is that your mold for the wax would have to be many pieces. And the inside would be really hard, as you would have to be able to pull the inside in before extracting the cast to not damage the wax.

Usually wax molds are made of flexible rubber so they can include mildly undercut elements of design, and exist in few pieces.

-Whystler

whystler is correct, hence me saying make the mold out of Silicone.

and also casting wax is realy quite strong. so removing it from the mold shouldnt be an issue

The jeweler that did the casting has done molds of all of my things, in case I need copies. He used Vulcanized Rubber, which melts the original. I'm certain it's the best, as he is very knowledgeable.

In the case of the Ring of Souls though, the process of making the waxes has proved impossible with his current tools. Too many overhangs. He says it can be done, but he'd need a vacuum device to get all of the wax into the crevices. This is something he currently does not possess.

Joris says that he's certainly open to adding Solidscape wax printing, but others in the company are not. If you guys want high-rez wax prints, and think you can handle the casting yourself, please let everybody at Shapeways know.

Thus far, Shapeways has concentrated on making finished items that are immediately useful. It goes a bit contrary to their company policy to make something that you, the end consumer, has to take to somebody else to have finished. We have to let them know we want this, or it's not likely to happen.

Hey Max,

This might belong here. If there is a better place, let me know, but ...

To be truthful, there are materials I would prefer over high detail wax. I do want something that is finished - that I can ship directly from shapeways to the consumer and not have to dirty my hands with contracting a silversmith.

I have a feeling a lot of folks who use Shapeways would rather make a print here and have it done with, than have to contract out or even do post processing of their own.

Certainly, I would prefer to see a higher detail material that is "finished" and go directly to the consumer long before I would want to see wax prints here at Shapeways. At least then you can can order the higher detail print, make a mold, cast a wax piece for lost wax metal casting. Or maybe this high detail material could be burnt out instead of the wax as someone else experimented.

Don't get me wrong, I love metal. I just prefer to design using the restrictions of the current material rather than incur the cost and fuss of adding more steps by contracting a metalsmith.

-Whystler

i sort of agree,

but if i could choose 2 new materials, i would go for a more fine grane detail intencive material. next would be the wax for post work



something that might be worth trying for your soul ring......the new smooth material, but the minium $23 is a bit :S for it i guess.

You should look at the Smooth material spec again. It has less detail then WSF or Transparent, not more.

There are no options available through Shapeways that are even close to the detail Solidscape offers. Wax isn't my first choice of materials, but when it's a choice between Wax or fuzzy, "Tree like" prints, obviously wax is the best choice. The added cost of casting myself is just the price of getting the perfect print.