First Shapeways prints (Chess pieces)

I test printed the pawn with three different materials, to see what I liked best, and to test how they look together as separate sides. He's my take on my first ever prints from Shapeways.

I printed SWF, Grey Robust, and Alumide.

SWF, looks and feels the best, definatly good for the "white side". You can see a tiny bit of faceting in the model if you look close, so this material certainly prints accurately.

Grey Robust, looks good, but has some flaws from the printing process, where the beads, or ropes show, and a seam all along one side. Still, not a huge distraction from the print, but something to notice.

Alumide. Cool material. I wasn't expecting it to be dusty though. Not sure how to clean it best, but not worried about it either.

Alumide vs. WSF would be a nice set, or the standard WSF vs BSF. Or now you could do stainless and gold plated stainless

Very nice! You should have printed the knight, though. Chess set quality is judged by looking at the knight (something I learned from my wife, who has bought many chess sets). I would spend some extra time on the knight ...

Yeah, next order I'll do the knight, I'm going to try the WSF, in black. I wasn't happy with the contrast between the 2 sides with the gray robust. But the knight was the hardest to model, I wanted nice smooth shapes, while getting the knight to look like a horse head. Not as easy as it sounds! but I like the results. When I get the print, I'll post it.

I like the pawn a lot though. Its a very languid pawn if that makes any sense.

The Knight looks "right on"!

Are you thinking of offering the set for sale once you are done??? Add a sandstone board... Ka-Blamo! NICE

Todd
www.4m3d.com

Yep, they are up for sale now, I'm very happy with how they look printed. I like the idea of the chess board, it would be easy to make. But the cost would be prohibitive wouldn't it? By my calculations a board with 1 in squares would be about $132 and that's only 1/8in thick which is really thin to print such a big sheet. And these pieces fit on squares of 1 1/2 to 2 inches really! The thing to do would be to make a miniture set for SS and SS gold plated! Then the board would be small too. That would be killer IMHO! I'll have to sell a few sets before I can afford the SS version I'm afraid! ha!

Nice work.
Are they hollow or solid?
I am hoping that they're solid; I think chess pieces benefit from a bit of mass.

They are hollow I'm afraid. They would be just too expensive solid. They aren't bad but for a really nice feel I think you could fill with plaster and put on felt bottoms. That would really make them feel good.

Filling with plaster would give them good mass.
If you try it, I'd love to know whether you're pleased or not

.