Advanced FUD Post-Production

I wanted to share with everyone the latest prototype of a project I have been working on over the last year. The piece itself is of limited appeal (a pinhole lens for motion-picture use), but I thought the post-production process might be of interest to other Shapeways users.
The bulk of the piece is FUD (or, more precisely, FD). It arrived waxy, oily, and a little rough.



There's been a lot of discussion on these forums about how best to remove the wax and oil from these models. I had great success with a soft toothbrush and a cup of warm soapy water. I turned the piece on a lathe and sanded many of the surfaces, scrubbing in between passes to make sure no material built up. The result was much smoother and cleaner in appearance.



Though fantastically detailed and accurate, the translucent and brittle nature of the FD material is a drawback. I decided to have the piece metal-coated by Sean Wise at RepliForm, in Maryland. Sean sprayed the model with a very fine abrasive before applying a thin .003" layer of nickel to the surface. This provided a tough shell without sacrificing the fine details and careful measurements.



As you can see, the build lines that were not sanded away are still visible, but the exterior is now quite tough and less prone to chips or scarring.

At this point, all that remained was painting and installing a little bit of hardware. I masked off the parts that I wanted to remain silver and airbrushed the exposed surfaces black. Once dry, I assembled the finished lens (with CNC machined aluminum mount) and shot some test footage (which can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/37637102). Below are some photos of the finished piece.







And here it is mounted on the camera.