I ran into this excellent article on a Blog where this guy made a resin cast from a 3D print. It's well worth a look if you are remotely interested in doing this. There are some product shots of the materials he used and wondered if anyone out there knows of these or their equivalents in N.America? http://i.competitive service.com/Blog/Entry/how-the-tripods-came-ali ve1
Smooth-on has an amazing selection of silicone rubbers and casting resins. OOMOO is a nice rubber for beginners and smooth-cast is a good resin. A simple youtube search will reveal a lot of information on how casting and mouldmaking works. PS: Always buy polyurethane casting resin, don't try your luck with polyester resins - those smell badly and are much less user friendly.
Many thanks. Anyone remember those services that will "bronze" a pair of baby shoes....? I wonder if any such service would bronze a Shapeways model?
I think that could work. If I remember correctly, the first step in the process is a bath of copper powder suspension, which soaks into the model and makes it conductive for electroplating. I think that would work great for WS&F as it would be very good at absorbing the copper suspension in the first step. It looks like it would be expensive though. A google search took me to ABCBronze.com - they will bronze almost anything, but it looks like it's pretty expensive. They charge over $50 for something as simple as a golf ball. I'm sure there could be cheaper options if you shop around. Usually the first result on google isn't the best (cheapest) one.
Thanks very much for the search. I suppose it could be expensive to do that... however, depending on the quality, it might be worthwhile offering "artistic" pieces bronzed at "fine-art" prices, much like artists working in sculpture do now.... G