- Material Overview
- Design Guidelines
Available Finishes:
Sandstone (for files w/o textures)
Fullcolor Sandstone (WRL, X3D w/ textures)
Ships in: 8 business days
Handling Fee Per Model: $3.00
Price Per cm3: $0.75
Minimum Wall: 2mm
Max Bounding Box: 250x380x200mm
Properties
Strength
Detail
Smoothness
Flexibility
Glossiness
Transparency
The only material which allows for photo-realistic, color designs, Sandstone is made with Z-Corp printers and has a resolution of up to 650x540 DPI. Figurines, life-like models, avatars and products which lend themselves to high-resolution designs are ideal. The material itself is gypsum-based powder that is bound together with an adhesive and simultaneously embedded with an ink jet head. The products are then finished with cyanoacrylate (same stuff super glue is made of) sealant to ensure durability and more vivid colors. The printed product is a hard, rigid material that is slightly brittle and not suited for structural parts under great load. However, they are great for little figurines and models of your favorite video game avatar. Some of our most successful products have been made with this material! Please keep in mind that Full Color Sandstone is brittle so be careful with your prints.
The colors we use are similar to Inkjet Printer coloring, which fades when wet. The same principle applies to 3D printed colors. In this photo, the original color was a sky blue (as represented in the lower right of the photo), and after we dipped the model in water the blue faded and whitened. This model should not be designed for applications that requires the model to touch water.
This material is not watertight, not dishwasher safe, not recyclable, and not foodsafe. It is heatproof to 60C/140F degrees. Higher temperatures may significantly change material properties.
Technical PDFs: Material Safety Data Sheet
Top Design Tips
- 1 Sandcastle Rule: If this structure was made of wet sand, would it break? - There's a part in the production process for sandstone 3D printing during which the model is fragile and brittle. It's basically like wet sand. When you design, ask yourself this question: if I made this out of wet sand or brittle clay, could I lift the design without it breaking? If the answer is "no," then your design might break in production.
- 2 Hanging structures are not printable - Any structure that has a hanging structure is like to break. This includes the end in an unsupported, heavy object, as pictured. Another example of something that would break is a miniature of a person holding a guitar with one frail arm straight out. The frail arm would break.
- 3 The more supported, the thinner the structure (& vice versa) - Supported structures are structures that connect to other structures. For example, think of an empty box. In this example, the bottom of the box is supported by the side walls. On the other hand, fan blades are not supported except in the middle. Fan blade-like structures should be thicker to avoid breakages during production.
- 4 Color may very during printing - Our Full Color Sandstone printers use a four color printing process, mixing the proportions of these colors to achieve thousands of different colors. Similar to an inkjet printer, they print pigmented binder fluid in either Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, or Black, layer by layer, onto white powder. Reproducing the same image with the same exact colors repeatedly would require many more than four colors of ink.
- Read more Design Guidelines
Please note that the 3D printed products are intended for decorative purposes. They are not suited to be used as toys or to be given to underage children. The products should not come into contact with electricity and be kept away from heat. Our materials, except for 3D printed glazed ceramic, are not food safe.
