Gear Heart arrived!

Discussion in 'My Shapeways Order Arrived' started by thehumanhive, May 23, 2009.

  1. rawkstar320
    rawkstar320 Member
    Wow. Thats all I have to say.

    Well, maybe not.

    Amazing.

    I might have to look into getting one of those if you make it into a pendant. :D
     
  2. thehumanhive
    thehumanhive Member
    pdl,

    Thank you for your purchase and posting these details.

    The photos and finished model look great! The color is definitely very bright and uniform. You've convinced me to go purchase RIT scarlet dye. ;)

    Perhaps Shapeways could offer a red color? Even if it were a only for a few months, like a "Valentine's day through Mother's day" thing? (I know it is too late for this year. Maybe next year. :)) I think it would look fantastic on a lot of models.

    All,
    Thank you. I'm still looking at other options for this model including different shapes, larger and smaller models. My thoughts right now are that material restrictions would prevent pendant-size models (i.e. the 'burrs' on unpolished steel, the tolerances of WS&F, and the flexibility on the Detail materials).

    I've printed half-size models and have yet to a create a model that will work.

     
  3. tones3d
    tones3d Member
    Brilliant!

    I have always loved odd-shaped gears, but your Gear Heart is right off axis!!

    Thanks for posting.
     
  4. 26133_deleted
    26133_deleted Member
    You are welcome. One minor point, the color isn't perfectly uniform. I'd say it is very nice, more than good enough.
    But there is some slight difference in color on the sharpest edges, and parts with different curvature and different orientation to the SLS assembly process can have slightly different net color. For example, the top middle gear has some slight variation in color on both lobes. Again, very nice color, in my opinion, but not perfect.
    I think if the nylon WSF dust were colored before SLS, the color would be more uniform. Thus your suggestion that Shapeways offer colored service makes sense.

    Maybe green for saint Patrick's day, red for valentines, pink for mothers day, orange for Halloween, etc. Certainly there would be operational issues of offering different colored dust, perhaps meaning there is more delay (waiting for enough batches of parts of a color to be ordered before printing) etc. Perhaps Shapeways could expose their part-production pipeline so customers could see how long the delay would be in one or more colors, what the delay would be for white. Depending on the growth of Shapeways total volume production, this could make sense in the future, even if it has too large an impact on operational business aspects to implement immediately.

    pdl.

    > The photos and finished model look great! The color is definitely
    > very bright and uniform. You've convinced me to go purchase RIT
    > scarlet dye. Wink
     
  5. euphy
    euphy Member
    Thank you very much for detailing your dyeing process, and I have to say that this mechanical heart was one of the first things on shapeways that made me go _wow_.

    Does anyone have any opinions about the quality/durability difference between getting coloured pieces directly from shapeways versus ordering in WSF and dyeing yourself?

    I'm going to order some of these RIT dyes too. I see powders and liquid listed online, is it just the powder that is good? Anyone know if there is a Dylon equivalent?


    Cheers!!
    Sandy
     
  6. gibell
    gibell Well-Known Member
    The Shapeways dying process gives the same appearance and durability, in my experience . The only issue I've had is that if they don't clean the parts enough before dying, the surface wears off and white is exposed. They seem to have gotten better at cleaning the surface off lately, so maybe no longer an issue. I always dye now because it is cheaper.

    Powder and liquid dyes produce nearly identical results. The colors always end up darker for me than the color on the boxes, I always go with the lighter colors now.

    Be sure to stir the pot continuously or hold them under the water with a spoon, or the color may be uneven. I've also seen uneven coloring due to the plastic layering and the fact that it absorbs the dye differently depending on the layer direction. Some colors show more differences than others.

    -George

     
    Last edited: May 9, 2010
  7. euphy
    euphy Member
    Thanks George, I'm sure I'm not the only one that appreciates the reply - I'm going to get a few different dyes and see how they come out.

    Cheers!
    sn
     
  8. 4m3D
    4m3D Member
    I have never seen anything like this before!

    FANTASTIC Work....

    You blew my mind!

    Todd
    www.4m3d.com