Hi, I have a few small items that I'd like to print in steel material. With SFP, I've printed multiple models together with a thin 1mm rod connecting them as if they are one piece model. Then I snapped the rods off from models once printed. Would this be possible with steel? What would be the most cost effective way to print multiple of same model with this material? Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
How large will these items be and how many do you want to try to print at one time? I asked this question because there is a huge concern one must take into account concerning how the liquid bronze moves into the parts via capillary action.
I believe I saw "heavy duty pliers" mentioned in conjunction with small tool marks found on "steel" rings - production needs to add sprues to the model already for the bronze infusion. (I suspect that such sprues have to be wider than one millimeter to ensure sufficient flow of the melt, and if you tie more than a few objects together that way, the production team would probably refuse the order as they would have to add (and later remove) their own sprues to each of them to ensure sufficient infusion while getting payed only the setup cost of one item)
I'd like to print 10 of these small pieces at once, if possible. Marked with blue arrows are where I'd like to cut and marked in red area is 1mm in diameter. I was wondering after printing them as one piece, If I could lay a chisel and hammer it down to break them off. Does it look possible? (I've attached a image)
You didn't say what the dimensions are of each piece, but using photogrammetry I was able to determine that the spikes are about 20 mm long and the whole assembly is about 55 mm diagonally. The reason why I asked is Shapeways varies wire thickness based on the overall size of the model. I can tell you right now that which you have already is not printable by Shapeways using Shapeways Steel material because minimum wire thickness is not met in two places. The areas near the end of the spikes are under 1 mm in diameter and the areas where you have the blue arrows are also under 1 mm. Consequently, this part cannot be made in its current form using Shapeways' Steel material. You do have the right idea though. This is a very good way to print multiple parts. You just need to observe minimum wire and wall thicknesses for every area of the entire part. You can however make this using Shapeways' Raw Brass material since very near to the ends of the spikes I'm measuring 0.6 mm. However, you would need to increase the blue arrow areas to 0.6 mm and you would probably want to increase the main sprue diameter to something like 3 mm so that the molten brass can flow into the entire part. As for cutting, I wouldn't worry about that even with Shapeways' Steel material in a 1 mm thick wire. You could probably just grab a spike with your fingers and wiggle it back and forth to cause metal fatigue fractures to occur and then it would just break right off. Or you could simply use a pair of dikes to snip them off. Keep in mind that Shapeways' Steel material is not solid steel, rather it is a composite of steel particles held together with infused bronze.
Thank you very much. This is very helpful. I'll adjust my design accordingly and try printing, then breaking it off. Really appreciate it.
Breaking it, or cutting it with a chisel seems kinda primitive (but manly though). A Dremel with a cutting wheel will go through that bit of steel pretty easily, and leave you with a nicer remaining edge.
Yes, breaking steel is not a thing. You'll need a Dremel tool with cutoff wheels, or some species of saw, as well as abrasives to buff out and/or retexture the cut areas.