Shapeways 3d printing

[RKapuaala]

BTW,,,, Looking at the 1:20.32 FUD piece; I cast in resin and make molds out of RTV. I do not think those fingers will make it out of a mold, or that the mold will hold up. Areas like that seem to shrink with age and disappear.
What do you cast with Darko?

 

[pokrad]

I use Rhodosil, and it works perfect. Why do you think it would not hold ? Sure it has to be two-sided mold, so You could pull out the resin without any force- but I think it is possible. I casted some rocket flaps in 1/48 (about 0.5 mm thick), and it worked like a charm

 

[pokrad]

Darko, you are correct on that. It would make a great master. One thing is disturbing. I have those 3 small Len figures printed int he various materials they were suppose to ship on the 3rd, then they said they broke one cleaning it and they needed to print it over again. That was 9 days ago and I still haven't gotten the figures. Makes me wonder about reliability. I'm not going to complain though, the price is right.
Thanks Ken

Yes, I figured out that they have some organizational problems - for example I got e mail reminder to pay for my order 10 days after I payed, and 5 days after I got payment confirmation from them
But they are still the best service of this kind..

 

[RKapuaala]

Do you pressurize your castings? I'll have to look Rhodosil up. Never heard of it. I vacuum my molds and pressurize my castings. I don't like 2 part molds because of the seams, but considering how complicated these poses are, I think I'd have to make a two part mold or cast in the figure in several parts. I'm planing on casting only the 7/8ths figure, but not the smaller ones.

 

[pokrad]

Yap, I do it the same way - vacuum the RTV and presure the resin. The seams could be minimal if you make "keys" so the two sides can't slip. I like one-part molds too, unfortunatelly they are out of the question for complicated figures.
Here You can get more info on Rhodosil: http://www.bluestarsilicones.com/bs...atch=view&id=90000419&name=rhodorsil_rtv_3325
but I think that in the USA you can get even better RTV...

 

[RKapuaala]

Thanks Darko. On a humorous side. I began a likeness for einstein today. Since you taught me I can just add other closed objects to the figure, I decided to just do the head. I don't know why it never occurred to me before, but doesn't it look like Einstein is a burn victim in this image. I might just save it the way it is and use it for some grusome Holloween diorama.

 

[RKapuaala]

Actually the White strong material made a poor master for a mold. It was hard enough to paint because it is super absorbant.

The material is like paper, so the I got some really nice effects on the paints, but the skin took for ever. The surface is also very bumpy so that it is nearly impossible to get crisp clean lines around the iris and the pupil,,, it just wants to spread.
I bought a FUD version and made some castings of that.

I've assembled one and will paint that so that you can see the difference in quality. To make the parts I used a razor saw. The acrylic FUD cut very cleanly and with little effort. I probably could have made better joints, but I figured this is just experimental so butt joints are ok.
I'll post an image of the castings when I finish painting them.

 

[m0delista]

Amazing models