New Material! Gold Plated Brass

As some of you are aware, today we released a new material. Gold plated Brass is now available!

For details on the release, check out the blog post here.

I'll answer some of the questions we've seen asked, and if you have any further questions, please feel free to comment below.

1) pricing: For a few models, premium silver is less expensive. That is because premium silver is $28 per cc up until 3.4cc's. Where Gold plated Brass is $35 per cc across the board. As with all pricing, especially trial pricing, this is subject to change.

2) interlocking, non-connected parts: Gold plated Brass has the same rules as premium silver, so no interlocking parts not connected. And only one piece per file except cuff links and ear rings.

3) Alternate finishes: We are always looking to expand the number of high quality material options we offer and are working hard on R&D to make sure you can hold the latest and greatest in your hands. You can expect lots more from us...and keep the feedback coming!

Do this:

Brass
Brass Glossy
Brass Premium
Brass Premium electroplated

Ya, there needs to be a basic brass just like there is a basic silver.
Also, many people don't know that brass is available in many metallurgic mixtures. What most people know as brass is actually called 360 brass, or free machining brass or yellow brass. They are all the same mixture.
The foundries when asked to supply brass will always go to the cheaper red brass, which has a high copper content. This is not the brass people will want because it tends to fold when put on a buffing wheel and is not easily drilled or machined.

So please offer raw castings in 360 yellow free machining brass for makers who need to do secondary machining as well as drilling, tapping and threading operations for multi part assemblies.

I wish to mirror the above,

If you are into lost wax casting of brass, can we please just have the brass without the plating,
where customer does their own fettling.?

Can you please show examples of the vents you build for various items ?

What size do you want for runners?

Also why is a minimum bounding box measurement 0.6mm, when the minimum wall/wire is 0.8mm?

Regards

Is there is a sprue casting point in this process as there is with stainless steel that gets ground off before polishing and plating? How is this location determined, by who is it determined, can the designer suggest a preferred sprue location or a don't ever sprue here location, and how consistent is the location over time and for different orders?

I'd love to try a pen blank using this process but without knowing where any sprue location might be located could result in a waste of $72.


ETA:

This is the bad boy pen blank I'd like to try in this process (or silver which turns out to be cheaper).



I would not want any sprue attach or grinding at the ends of the cylinder bands on the edges adjacent to the center hole since these surfaces need to be as flat as possible to mate up properly with the pen hardware, and I wouldn't want a sprue point inside of the cylinder either because of the brass tube that would go inside the blank. In this case a sprue point on the external pattern is preferred. I could probably increase the end band widths if that helps the processing.

It's my experience things that Shapeways thinks is good for 3D printing MrNib sometimes thinks is bad for making pens. So I thought I'd ask before proceeding and doing a whole bunch of redesigns.

MrNib:- there would have to be vent holes from each item too.

Question - do you spin the item during the pour: as with white metal casting?

Where is your man with these answers?

Most of the team was at SIGGRAPH last week, so once everyone gets it, that which can be answered will be.

I'm thrilled there is another material available and impressed with the quality of the items I am seeing printed in said new material. However, I do have some thoughts on the matter.

Firstly, I second (third or fourth?) what the above posters are saying. I would love to see plain, glossy, premium, and electroplated brass. For electroplated brass, I would like to see the options of silver, 10k and 14k gold. Personally, I find 24k gold to be gaudy and impractical. It is soft and easily scratched. 10k and 14k are A LOT more durable and more aesthetically appealing (to me anyway). I don't know if any of that is possible as I'm neither a jeweler nor a metalworker and I'm still newbaceously inexperienced at 3D printing. So perhaps there are reasons other karats are not useable but if they are, I'd sure love to see those options.

Also, dunno if this is the right place to ask but if I were to shrink this: http://bobbie-the-jean.deviantart.com/art/Key-To-My-Heart-37 0053085 would it be printable in this material or in hypothetical future 14k electroplated brass? Or is it too complex? Would any blemishes arise from the printing/casting processes and if so, where? I would LOVE to be able to print something like this up in silver or 14k gold electroplated brass. Oh, and if possible, I'd also like to see larger printing sizes for these materials. I'd love to be able to print my key up without having to shrink it.

Just to add my 2 cents worth; I'd like to see just plain Brass also.

Jim

Excited about having a brass option, but need to re-visit the nickel issue please - it would be much more useful to jewellers if there was no nickel layer between the brass and gold... Nickel presents a real allergy issue, and will limit potential customers for this metal jewellery.

I have also requested that Shapeways please make info available on the nickel content in any of their alloys, as jewellery makers need to be able state if there is nickel present in their work.

Thanks!

The nickel also functions as a barrier layer to protect the gold plating from metal diffusion from the brass into the gold. This could cause discoloration and possible adhesion problems after some amount of time. I'm not sure if there is a cost effective alternative to nickel to perform this function.

Note also that there are limits imposed on the nickel release from "objects designed to be in prolonged contact with the skin"
by EU REACH Annex 17 item 27 (as successor to a previous EU nickel directive). I suppose this will only come into play if/when
a EU customer (or consumer safety lab) does actual testing of a piece of Shapeways GPB jewelry, but it might be useful (or even
necessary ?) to have nickel release data for some "representative sample" available.
(Not sure if cobalt could be used in place of nickel here ?)

1 vote for plain brass

Does anyone know if there will be any feedback on this? I know Shapeways has a good rep for paying attention to its user base but I'm starting to get antsy for info on whether or not we will ever see plain brass and other options for electroplating.

As for all materials, we look at the demand. Unfortunately, you probably wont get more than a day of advanced notice. We like to keep materials a surprise.

I'll bug some people about the answers for vent and sprue locations

As always, thanks for your input! The materials team at Shapeways is always working on new offerings. Given the option to launch Gold Plated Brass, we chose to get it out as fast as possible. But we hear your requests for new finishes loud and clear, and we are actively exploring different options. What types of models would you design in different finishes?

With resect to the sprues - unfortunately, we don't have a way to enable designers to indicate where sprues are located. However, Gold Plated Brass is heavily hand polished, and won't have any protrusion at sprue points. On all the models I have seen so far, it is impossible to tell where the sprues were.

+

The process, as described for Gold Plated Brass, is lost wax casting.

The sprues and vents would be at the stage of printing the wax model.

When it has been poured, the sprues and vents would have been fettled
before gold plating.

When may we please have your man, who is intimately involved with preparation
for the pour process, give us examples and his experience to aid designs for
this process?

+

"What types of models would you design in different finishes?"

Personally, things like this: http://bobbie-the-jean.deviantart.com/art/Key-To-My-Heart-37 0053085 I printed it up in frosted detail plastic and it came out very nicely but it was extremely lightweight and .... lacking a certain substantiality or weightiness. I want this key to be high detail with a certain heaviness to it so it feels like real metalwork. Does this make sense?

I don't even know if this is remotely possible. Could that be printed in brass at all? I'm just an artist. I know how to make things look pretty, that's about it, I'm embarrassed to admit. I know nothing about casting or metalwork and I'm still newbly at 3D printing. As for why I'd want different finishes..... well, that 24kt looks very gaudy to me. I want something a little less in-your-face-yellow. Perhaps like this: http://img1.etsystatic.com/016/0/5636223/il_570xN.434152239_ lnxi.jpg or this: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/5515068514_2f6090432c.jp g And also, I could, for example, break that key model apart into separate sections and print them up in different finishes. I could have a gold base with silver accents or vise versa.

If it truly is not noticeable then that would be good, but if you have to mate up a de-sprued surface to a machined surface odds are that you will notice. Maybe I can come up with a flexible gasket method to try and hide the problem if visible. If at the very least the sprue point was consistent for every part than at least you could order one and see how it turns out before risking $70 of someone else's money, at least for pen blanks. But if brass is anything like stainless steel there is no consistency to where the sprue point is located. I guess I'll leave the metal stuff to jewelry makers. It probably won't be any good for pen makers unless they can do their own post processing, and then you'd want plain brass instead of anything that's plated, and have it plated somewhere else. I can wait for a cheaper plain brass process.

Here's an idea, how about Shapeways provide the designer with an image of the modified sprued design, if requested, and then let them approve or cancel the order before fabrication?

From my post on another thread:

So ok, yeah, add me to the many wanting access to the plain raw brass castings!

As for sprues... What if the DESIGNER specified their location as part of the model? If there was a standard for sprues and vents, they could be easily added and instantly recognizable. You could even have a downloadable file with examples (as well as criteria for placement) available that could just be copied and pasted into our designs. Or perhaps if we uploaded two models - One with sprue and vent placement locations for reference, and one for production without?