Hi Could someone let me know is shapeways has a fee I can pay to get rings separated and burrs removed. I would like to produce some silver rings but the $30 finishing plus $25 shipping is killing by budget. I remember the days when there was no finishing or delivery charges meaning my $30 ring didn't end up costing $85. Otherwise i will just have to put as many rings in the file as possible joined with tiny burrs i remove them myself with a dremel. :confused
ok. I connected my rings, three of them by small links (after searching for quite a while online i could not find what these connections are called, burres? spurs?? well little wires that connect separate bits of jewelry?) and the file was rejected by shapeways and my money was refunded, shapeways said to separate the rings. SOOOO my question is... can i print multiple rings at the same time by connecting them together via little wires? as i had previously been told was probably ok, or was it just that my wires were too small/thin or not enough of them?? after writing an email to shapeways asking why, i have received no answer on what actually was the problem. I would like to be able to print several rings at once and finish them myself. as a single $18 ring is blown out to $18 pluss $30 finishing pluss $25 shipping ...thats $73 ouch!
We tend to call the wires sprues, as they are much like the removable sprues from injection molding. Like you would see in a model car kit, with the pieces still being attached to, but easily removed from the sprues. Now for your rejection. There are a couple issues. 1) the rings are printed in wax, then the wax is melted out and replaced with silver. I don't think your 2 little sprues will allow the necessarily flow to fill the subsequent rings. 2) polishing would result in an uneven finish on the outside rings. Lastly, if you order 3 of your rings, your price per ring is reduced to $56 seeing the shipping would remain $25 for all the pieces.
ok cool. I understand the pricing. so back to the sprues. what thickness would you recommend they be in length and width?, seeing that they were over the 1mm shapeways limitation for the molding process and to me that seems that should be enough for the wax to melt out and the rings be filled. also I ordered unpolished rings so that should not be an issue. I would still like to print the rings in a group to save money, as $56 pluss $25 makes, being $85 individually is far beyond any profit for me. It says no where that i cant group the rings, and after posting the question originally you (Youknowwho4eva) said I could do the finishing myself, I would hate to change the file and have it rejected again. can you please assist me in what I need to do to have them printed in one file? silver has a min wire supported of 0.8mm and my sprues were 1.1mm.. if i make them 1.3mm and extend them by 3mm in length would that be ok?
As far as my first comment, I meant any finishing you want done outside of the provided finishes, you would have to do yourself. As we don't do custom finishing. The best people to ask about what you need to do to get it printed is Service. They either will know, or will be able to ask the manufacture for any recommendations. You could also post in Work in Progress, to see if anyone else has had experience in what you are trying to do.
Trying to produce something by 3D printing that is similar to mass produce items is always going to end in tears.....