Fun & Giggles With That Wacky Steel Material

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Ontogenie, May 24, 2017.

  1. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    So, just for fun I ordered two of my stainless steel zebrafish pendants. Same order, same day, same model, most definitely not the same color! I mean I get it that it's not reasonable to expect steel to be the same color every time, but in the SAME ORDER they're different?! Really?

    Could one of the stainless steel apologists please explain this one to me, because I'm mystified. steel fish.jpg
     
  2. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    There have been several threads on this topic over the years, in short "same order" means nothing to a stochastic process (how much bronze ends up on/near the surface of individual parts and how much influence, if any, individual polishing can have). So far shapeways has not even bothered to rename the "stainless" to something less misleading.
     
  3. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    You're right. I think I recall seeing some of these posts. It's just been a really shitty day and I didn't need this on top of it. I seriously want all of them to look like the goldish one, every single time, but yeah, randomness. :(
     
  4. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    The thing is, I am (or rather I used to be) a scientist. If I was working at our beloved steel printing service (that shall remain nameless and is not Shapeways), I would be working every day to optimize the procedure for consistency. I would not be happy with, 'oh, look at that, sometimes the fish are silverish and sometimes goldish.' Are they not the least bit curious/motivated/engaged in standardizing the procedure?
     
    Malwen likes this.
  5. MrNibbles
    MrNibbles Well-Known Member
    The only steel prints that have given me consistent color and quality are the gold plated ones. Even the nickel option seems to be sometimes plagued with various colors and surface shine (probably poor surface prep or pre-plating?).

    On the bright side the variations in regular steel don't matter much for fishing lures because the fishies aren't always so particular, especially if they are further decorated with colorful enamel paints. It also hurts more in the wallet if a gold plated lure gets snagged on a sunken tree and is lost to SpongeBob SquarePants.
     
  6. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    I bet the plating process/result is influenced by the composition of the surface underneath... and for ExOne, shapeways prints in what is probably the oldest of their materials are just a tiny sideline (and jewelry just one fraction of it, surface color does not matter that much for some multitool or mounting bracket). They could certainly do better, but not at that price.
     
  7. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    I've had good luck with the gold-plated ones, too. Never tried it with this model, though, because I kind of like the more vintage effect of unplated stainless steel.

    I'm envious of your uncritical aquatic audience. :D Note to self: design a line of products I can sell to non-humanoid beings who don't care what color the steel is.
     
  8. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    Yeah, I realize it's not a major part of their business, and also that their patience with whiny jewelry designers is not offset by the little bit of money they make off us, but I also think they're taking advantage of the fact that they are really the only supplier anywhere of 3D-printed stainless steel jewelry. I'd like to see one of their European counterparts take on this challenge. Competition = lower prices and better quality, yes? Maybe I should check around with some of our German additive manufacturing companies and see if they've ever thought of getting into the jewelry biz.

    And I still think the color of the steel is random not because the process is random but because they don't care about making it more consistent (because they don't have to!). Imagine if there was only one cast metal supplier in the world and the polished silver quality was as inconsistent as the steel. Every jewelry designer at Shapeways would be out of business.
     
  9. Youknowwho4eva
    Youknowwho4eva Well-Known Member
    I wanted to clear up some things.

    We do call "Stainless" just Steel now on the materials page. And we've been open that ExOne is the manufacturer. You can even see me in some of the videos that we made with ExOne when we visited the facility. In the videos, you'll see that when they're infused, they're lined up on a stem, for the bronze to flow through. So the finish very much likely relies on the amount of bronze placed in, and the location on the stem.

    For the price we offer, we get variations in infusion. ExOne offers services in other materials, and will guarantee finish, but it comes at a higher price. If you check them out, and see a service that you'd like us to offer, post it up in suggestions. If there's a demand, we'll supply it.
     
    Malwen likes this.
  10. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    My point is that the materials page for Steel still calls the untreated material "Stainless" with an icon depicting a gray metallic part - this should be "Steel", "Plain", "Polished" or whatever and there should be an image showing the expectable variations.
    EDIT: Same on the materials drop-down on the model or shop pages - "Stainless Steel" with matching icon, not an accurate representation of the actual product.
     
    Ontogenie likes this.
  11. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    I updated my product descriptions to reflect this weirdness. Probably the safest way.
     
  12. Youknowwho4eva
    Youknowwho4eva Well-Known Member

    I agree that using "Stainless" as the name of the finish is not a great choice. I've been involved in discussions about the term, and the showing expected variations before, I'll see if I can jump start the conversation.
     
  13. Bathsheba
    Bathsheba Well-Known Member
    I keep checking Shapeways on this, and no one ever has a good word to say for "stainless", but it never gets fixed.
    Do we need to go to the office and set off a stink bomb? This is inaccurate and misleading for customers.

    Yeah, the color varies. It just does. Ex One aren't dumb guys so I have to believe it's hard to fix. (Back in the day I used to get parts where the color varied in swirls in the same part -- at least we don't see that anymore.)
     
  14. Wedding3D
    Wedding3D Member
    What if you make one model with more than one fish in it. Or make a thin bridge between those so it will become one mesh that you can separate afterward. Then the color might stay consistent.
     
  15. debdeb
    debdeb Well-Known Member
    I sympathize with you, Otogenie. I love using steel for my designs and have had similar experiences with color shifts and have accepted it. I also accept the accuracy issues with printing steel and have found that scaling my files up 2.5% for rings seems to do the trick. But, here's a pic of my latest order. Both were supposed to be "stainless". I'm skeptical that the disparity in these pieces is a color shift. I think they forgot to polish the feminist bracelet since it's rough to the touch and completely matte. May even be bronze steel?

    I understand that our Shapeways orders are--pardon the pun--a little fish in the big steel vendor pond. I just wish that there was better QA and a quicker turnaround in customer service. I've had a few experiences where my order with multiple steel rings in different finishes, sizes and designs have come in with the finishes done on the wrong pieces--then have had to wait days for the "investigation" before a replacement is even ordered...still waiting since Tuesday to hear back on this one.

    I hope you don't mind my vent on your thread. Sorry.
     

    Attached Files:

  16. Ontogenie
    Ontogenie Well-Known Member
    No worries about the vent, it's best to get the info out there. I also love the steel. It doesn't work for most of my designs, but when it does, it's fabulous and vintage-y. The zebrafish and my climate change pendant are two examples of pieces I like in steel more than any other material.

    I don't understand why one of your bracelets would be polished and not the other. I've only seen the "failure to polish" like your feminist bracelet on smaller, more detailed pieces that I was sort of running as an experiment, but your pieces are close to the same size and level of detail as each other. Customer service is also a problem, and the delays are coming from ExOne, not Shapeways, because I always have excellent, within-24-hours service from Shapeways. And when you finally do get a response from ExOne, via Shapeways, it's usually not very satisfying. Hopefully they'll try again with the feminist bracelet, because it's a cool design!

    Like I said above, I think the only way this is going to change is if a real competitor for ExOne opens up shop. Until then, there's really no incentive for them to pick up their quality control game or their customer service game.