Printed directly using sintered 100% metal powder, wire feed 100% metal, metal powder in plastic matrix, or something else?
sintered 100% metal powder.
We’ve had several small parts made by sintering powder, titanium and stainless. Precision is good, finish is a bit ‘mossy’.
Agree. But from what the supplier said, you can have the parts chemically treated to become mirror-like (not that we have needed that).
If you need the pole thinner you can run a parallel support.
Thanks for the suggestion. Actually the pole is held by a lady. Just did a quick edit, adding something akin to an arm. My latest attempt:
model.3dm (5.2 MB)
May also try i.Materialise. They have more options for casting, including plating raw printed brass.
That’s looking neat.
Good move not doing the conic base on the main sprue too. That’d be good if it was to be cast alone, which I doubt. I guess they’ll add to a mixed user parts tree.
Result:
2 Likes
Great!
Cool!
What happened to the top piece?
Was the structure too thin?
No idea. It was within specs. But of course, .6 mm is very thin.
For the next iteration of the crosses I consider gold plated brass, and – for cost reasons – again all in one piece. This means that when cutting off items, the gold plating would be scarred. Still, this should be no problem as the underside of the crosses is not visible.
How’s the casting going?
I’d really like to know any problems you ran into after the first trial.
When making the model, just making the model in 100% size then expanding by say 3% ok?
I mean, should you consider the thickness of walls
to be similar or else places with more material shink more?
I ordered again from Shapeways, this time polished brass. The end result was slightly more shiny, not worth the extra price: The layer lines from the wax print were still visible.
Don’t do that. The casted piece had the same dimensions as the model I uploaded, down to a precision of, say, 0.1 mm.
I guess it’s time wax printers get more technology upgrade.
Thanks for the tip about shrinkage.
Can’t wait to try it out.
Layer lines are visible even if they are very thin.
3% is for a master pattern that will be copied on a rubber mold and then on wax for mass production.v 3% for the whole fabrication process.