# Shapeway prints Better and Better



## rkapuaala (Jan 3, 2008)

These are 4 prints that just arrived from Shapeways. This is my 5th order from Shapeways that has been printed consistently at the same level of quality; which is pretty darn good.
This image shows the prints cleaned of wax, primed and dry assembled. The three figures are all printed in Ultra Frosted Detail material and the bench was printed in the cheaper white strong material. Each material has its applications and draw backs.
The UFD material is very fragile and while the term 'frosted' might imply that the whole figure is frosted as it turns out this only partially true. Sometimes half the figure is frosted and sometimes it is frosted in spots. This is one last major flaw (IMHO) that keeps the figures from being perfect.
The frosted surfaces are areas that were supported during the printing. The frost is the residual affects of the acrylic material heating up on the support materials. This frosting used to be very thick and hard to remove without removing detail, but I haven't had that issue with it in a while. In fact I would prefer if they would just surround the figure with frosted material so all the surfaces are equal. As it stands it takes a long time to clean the support wax from the inner occlusions and then polish the frosted areas with a combination of baking soda and dish detergent.
As you can see the final result is sweet. It is castable and the detail level is very high even after thorough cleaning and polishing.
The bench is only my second attempt at printing non-human objects through shapeways, and it is my 4th try using the white strong material. The WS material is very cheap, but the problem really is the detail level and wall thickness. I have found that by making an object hollow you can significantly reduce the cost of the printing. But where the UFD wall thickness are .5mm the WS is 1mm and 1mm walls in that material are really too flexible to hold a shape. 2mm is the best wall thickness in that material. Because the bench is a combination of several geometric shapes most of which are at the limitations of wall thickness I was not able make it hollow and save money. 
WS material is also proned to the extreme stepping problems that are still present in UFD material but just not as extreme and in fact UFD hardly shows any sign of stepping.
Stepping occurs because the object is printed in layers and the WS layers are thicker than the UFD layers. So very slight differences in the alignment of the extrucers in the WS machines accent these layers. If you look closely at the bench you can see horizontal lines on the back slats. These are steps. I could have filled those steps and feather sanded them in, but this bench was just an experiement.


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for the info Richard. Looks good!


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## Jonnychuffchuff (Dec 24, 2010)

Likewise I'm grateful for this info, Richard. Admiring your work as well.


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## rkapuaala (Jan 3, 2008)

John, Jerry, 
Thanks I hope it is helpful. I've held back posting on this in depth for a while since I am still just now, getting to know the ins and outs of 3d printing and I am also just now confident that others will find it a useful tool for their hobby. Granted, making figures from sculpty is much cheaper, but then you have the limitation of only working in one scale, and only being able to sculpt what you can see. As the resolution of printing improves in the near future you will be able to add texture to everything including mechanical parts. 
Oh,,, BTW I need to clarified something about wall thickness,,,, Shapeways specs for FUD material wall thickness is .3mm, but you really don't want to go that thin. Here is why. 








This is the 1:20 scale version of the old lady sitting down. As you can see her bottom is blown out. I inadvertently made this print .4mm thick walled, and then while cleaning the wax from the in side I got too aggressive and busted it out. It can be fixed easily and is no problem since this is just a prototype and I'll be making molds from it, but it is very inconvenient. 









Here is the 1:20.32 scale version of the standing guy in the first image. He looks real good on the front and it was a breeze cleaning this one. The reason it was so easy for this 1:20 scale figure is that the figure was positioned correctly on the print table so that all the support material was on its back and followed the natural seams of the figure. 
One big detractor about Shapeways printing is that you don't control the position of your figure for printing. They do that to keep the cost of printing low. They can print your model of 10s of dollars instead of 100s of dollars because your model shares space with other models and to turn a profit they make sure that the print bed is packed with models. If you're lucky, you get your model positioned on its back and on the top of the heap, others wise its on its side and quite often I'll have models with half the face frosted and the other half smooth. Happily only the larger SE models suffered this inconvenience on this print cycle. 
If anyone is interested I can also do a write up on some of the FREE Tools I've been using. Just let me know.


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## Martan (Feb 4, 2012)

I'd like to see some info on your tools and process...


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

It hadn't occured to me that you would print the figures hollow. but it makes perfect sense! do you choose the wall thickness when you get to the setup at Shapeways or do you have to figure it out your self at home? I can see how it might be pretty tricky without software to help you. can you insert webs or a honeycomb to make it stronger?


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## rkapuaala (Jan 3, 2008)

Posted By Phippsburg Eric on 11 Apr 2013 06:14 PM 
It hadn't occured to me that you would print the figures hollow. but it makes perfect sense! do you choose the wall thickness when you get to the setup at Shapeways or do you have to figure it out your self at home? I can see how it might be pretty tricky without software to help you. can you insert webs or a honeycomb to make it stronger? 
Shapeways won't hollow it out for you. FUD material has a minimum wall thickness of .3mm but you have to be careful before making everything that thin as it will cause issues like below. I use Meshlab to do a Uniform Mesh resampling. That makes the hollow space. I have to then attach that hollow to the original mesh in MeshMixer. Once you get the hang of it, it takes seconds.


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