FireCast Resin replacement for wax

I haven't yet made use of the wax material offered by Shapeways due to its cost. Browsing the Internet I came across this resin material made specifically to be used in investment casting. I'm hoping that Shapeways has or will investigate the material and determine its cost viability compared to the wax used in many of Shapeways metal prints... I would love to see the cost of the precious metals items come down. Although at $199 retail for what appears to be a bottle less than 500ml in size it could well be too expensive.

"FireCast Resin: This new 3D printable material is the first consumer-grade resin formulated specifically for casting metal parts. Not being tethered to a single printer, FireCast Resin is compatible with a variety of SLA/DLP machines, including Form1, B9 Creator, and Deep Imager 5.

FireCast Resin is special in that it leaves no ash when it burns out during the heating phase of investment casting. The MadeSolid team created this formula after seeing a neglected area of the 3D printing industry. Until FireCast Resin, no casting specific resins have been made for consumer printers, such as the Form1. Pairing FireCast Resin with the influx of lower-priced SLA printers opens the door for casters of jewelry and metal parts to affordably access this technology."

More info HERE.

SLA requires supports are made from the same material as the main part and are therefore affixed to the part when finished. They must be removed and mostly snap right off leaving a minute surface imperfection, but there are instances where they cannot be removed readily. Take the interior of a hollow space for example, if the area is inaccessible then there is no way to get the supports out, meaning they would have to become part of the casting.

It's still usable though, LOTS of people around the world are using this type of printer for jewelry casting, it's just that it has some limitations when compared to the types of printers that have a completely dissolvable support system.

I won't be using Shapeways' wax either due to the price. I can get next day service from dental lab suppliers for close to the same price. In the mean time while we're waiting on a decently priced material I here WSF can be burned out successfully. It would be more finishing, but the reduced cost could be worth it.

I am currently still not equipped to do casting, so I haven't messed with any of this yet. I've been meaning to get into it for over a year, but I keep finding more interesting things to do with my time! HAHA! I actually have all the supplies to create a vacuum casting system, I just never got around to building it yet. Everything else I have.

Surely this material would be used in exactly the same way wax is now, right? So if the wax burns out so should the resin?

It's been a while since I looked at the WSF for burning out. Does it go as well as wax? I do know that the resulting fumes would be toxic.

Regarding your comment about dental labs: You give them the file and they supply the wax model? How does the cost compare?

I am set up for pewter casting and I have a kiln for metal clay firing, but that's about it for the metals I can use.

Yeah it's basically the same except for the polymer materials that simulate the properties of wax have different burnout out schedules. The two issues are expansion, which cracks the investment, and ash, which contaminates the casting.

I never tried it, but in Duann's recent burn test video one can see that it doesn't produce much ash.

Yeah they work with dental labs, the dental technician sends a STL and then gets the wax delivered the next day by express mail. I can't remember ( it was around a year ago) exact quotes and I cannot remember who it was that gave me the quote, but I do remember it was close to Shapeways price. On the other hand, I just now remembered it was for 32 micron layers, whereas Shapeways service is 16 micron. I remember now that's why I didn't order anything from them because I wanted 16 micron.

That's a good start!

Yeah, I guess for teeth the difference between 16 and 32 microns isn't even noticeable!