cost of printing @ Shapeways

I had a really great question from a viewer on my YouTube aqueduct yesterday on the bloom eternity band tutorial—how much would information technology toll to take the ring printed and cast? There are several factors that tin affect the overall toll, similar the thickness of the ring and the blazon of metal. I wear a similar band to this one, and mine is 1.5mm in thickness and it has never bent out of shape.

I'd only sent models out to Shapeways very early in my ZBrush exploration, and fifty-fifty so I'd just had waxes made. Then I had no thought what the answer to this question was…so I created a new ring and got it ready for Shapeways. Mind you, there are other dandy services out there, just Shapeways has a big multifariousness of materials bachelor.

I decided to add a bezel setting to mine with a hole that's smaller than the stone. I'll use setting burs and a hammer handset on my Foredom to bezel fix the stones. Creating a bezel with a smaller hole gives me flexibility on my rock size. Here are a couple photos of the model in ZBrush:

Afterward creating the ring and resizing it to the desired thickness and ring size, I used Decimation Master to lower the overall file size and simplify the mesh. My band is around a women'due south size 8 US.

Make sure that the model y'all want to consign is all in 1 Subtool—in my model, I had both the bezels and the flower ring which needed to be permanently merged. I used Merge Downwardly and re-Dynamesh to an appropriate resolution, which for full-sized rings in the method I use is a resolution of around 56-lxxx. Then I went to the Plugins carte, and located Decimation Master. I ever make a mental note of the ActivePoints in a higher place the canvass. Mine started out effectually 780,000 points.

This process has two steps…because you're but exporting i Subtool, you only need to use Pre-process Current. That step will take a footling bit of fourth dimension, depending on the size of your model and number of ActivePoints. One time you're done, the ActivePoint count will not change.

Special note about those ActivePoints: I tend to work with models that are a one thousand thousand points or lower…some artists accept high-end hardware and beloved to piece of work in the 12-xx million point range, only since I primarily work on a MacBook, and I hate waiting for my computer to process things, I learned how to piece of work in lower resolutions.

The second stride is to Decimate Current, and this is when you will meet a modify in the ActivePoints. Once the performance was consummate on my model, the ActivePoint count dropped down to 158,000, which is a smaller, more efficient file. It'due south easily uploaded to Shapeways by using the Export control in the Tool palette.

It looks like Shapeways has recently inverse their landing page, so you can apace upload a model and select a metal preference. Y'all can likewise choose the type of finishing—rough, polished, or finely polished. There is an upcharge for those extras, though.

And then the answer to the question if I were printing this design would be about $24-35 to print in sterling silver. Although I beloved wearing this band and then much I'd happily shell out $283 for a gilded version!

Also, there is another tool available. Run into beneath where it says TOOLS next to the title "Blossom Eternity Bezel Setting?" If y'all click on that you lot're directed to a 3D Tools page that volition evaluate your model, and requite data well-nigh the materials and printing.

Bank check out the images below, or you can click here to meet the model for yourself!

finally casting...the mandala pendants

UPDATE, December 2017: Looking back at this post, there are then many things that are incorrect! Anyhow, a skillful exploration of what works and what doesn't, and modifying a design to bandage and finish more easily. The main change I somewhen fabricated to this pendant is to attach the design to a backplate, so the design is simply raised from a background. With a patina, the blueprint is similar but much easier to cast and finish. I take since scrapped this blueprint and melted them all down. So maybe they'll exist collector's items someday! And oh my goodness…thankfully my design skills accept come a long way. I'll leave this post up, though, just in case others are having the same issues.

Well, it's finally fourth dimension. What better time to offset casting holiday gifts than a week before Christmas?

It's been an interesting journeying. It started dorsum in Denver afterward I got the casting setup...I retrieve that my kickoff attempt at casting with a perforated flask, I ran out of acetylene at 1 a.chiliad. and didn't have a manner to rut plenty metallic to cast. The 2nd attempt, I realized that my acetylene/ambient air torch couldn't estrus enough metallic hot enough to cast. Later on switching to my former Smith Little Torch (acetylene/oxygen) with a "bud tip," I was able to become the metal melted, only never cast before we suddenly moved back to Texas.

Fast frontward over a year. Since then I've taken the wax-working class with Kate Wolf, learned ZBrush, and explored printing in 3D on the Formlabs Grade two. I've printed a lot of things, merely the missing link was casting them into metal jewelry.

So I was gear up to go! Treed upwardly some models, was burning them out, and my kiln fell victim to the outdoor sprinkler. Since I work late at night usually, I didn't realize that the sprinkler was scheduled to water the backyard that night. The kiln was sitting on a piffling window in the outdoor kitchen burning out my first 3D model flask, and a poorly aimed sprinkler doused the kiln and killed it. I awoke to an error message and a flask that hadn't completed burnout. I was crushed.

Then what practice you do when your Paragon SC2 kiln has been watered?Let it sit for a few days and allow it dry out. Since this kiln has a metal cabinet, I removed the back and aimed the fan on the inside. Sure enough, virtually four days afterwards I had the guts to turn it back on. It worked.

Next, I was ready to cast the 3D prints. I prepared the trees, the flask, and tried casting over again. I was still having difficulty getting the metal heated correctly. Most that time I was helping my parents downsize their house, and my dad gave me a little nowadays...the Kerr Electro-Melt that I needed to become the metal to the correct temperature for casting. Something I've learned through research—not in do—is that metallic tin can be porous if overheated. When melting with a torch, you don't really know how hot the metal is. Any casting I've washed in the past was on a very modest scale, and I probably just got lucky!

Incomplete casting

Incomplete casting

And so I was fix to bandage, and treed upwards some nine models. This time when I cast, I heated the sterling silver to about 1740°F (Kerr recommends going 100°F above the melting temperature of the metal, and silver is most 1640°F). I used the Formlabs castable resin exhaustion schedule, which clocks in at near 14 hours, landing on a 900°F casting temperature with a 3.5"x4" perforated flask. The result was not good!

Only why?

After consulting Artistic Side Jewelry Academy here in Austin, and the Formlabs forum, I found that information technology could be either the metallic was non hot enough, or the flask was not hot enough. I found in another article that the flask can drop about 100°F in one minute in a vacuum caster, and then it suggested making your flask temperature 100°F hotter. Also, filigree designs require a slightly hotter flask. The girl at Creative Side asked if I cast close to 1100°F, and I remember casting at or near that temperature in the past. Participants in the forum suggested between 900°F, or 950°F for filigree. Then the proffer that every casting situation is different and these numbers are but guidelines, and so it requires experimentation.

Fast-frontward two years later, and my settings now are this: flask temperature at the end is 975°F, and metal in my Kerr Electro-Melt is 1865°F.

So I ready off to cast over again. This time, I used two two"x2.v" flasks, a 2.5"x2.5" flask, and a two.5"x3" flask, each with three models, rather than trying to cast a tree with x models (or more?). I also tried adding a forked sprue coming into the bezel on the back, and another configuration with four sprues coming to the back of the frame. On that one I too added two small sprues coming into the back of the bezel. The sprues on the back of the frame are very like shooting fish in a barrel to clean upwards, but when I 3D printed this ane, the different support configuration distorted the frame on the bottom.

I too conquered my fear of cleaning upward the jewelry! I learned from the forum that I should try tumbling the pendants for longer (these were polished virtually 40 minutes on a rotary tumbler), and silicone wheels piece of work well for cleaning up raw castings. So far I hadn't had much luck with them. So I busted out the kit and it worked!  I also tried these little wheels made with 3M micron finishing papers, and they worked well for grinding downwardly the sprues from the back and finishing the dorsum of the frame. And something surprising...the back of the pendant with a patina is as pretty as the dorsum...so information technology's reversible. I'll have to play around more with that.

However, they were still usable, and became Christmas gifts!

an introduction to 3D printing

I'g currently exploring the possibility of 3D printing of jewelry designs and prototypes for a new pendant. In this postal service, y'all'll learn about the types of 3D press and considerations for jewelry artists. Nosotros'll take a wait at some of the printers available, my first band, and online services that can print your designs.

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finally time for lost wax casting

I finally get a chance to cast the waxes I've been creating! Afterward learning a great bargain from Kate Wolf at Creative Side Jewelry Academy, I'm terrified to finally take the step of turning them into silvery jewelry...

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spruing and investing the wax models

So at present I finally have something to cast! Time to kickoff tearing through those unpacked boxes and find everything I need. Tongs, check! Torch, check! Casting investment, check-bank check!

Okay, I'one thousand scared to death of this step. Simply time to bite the bullet and just do it.

Step 1: Add together the Sprues

When y'all're creating a lost wax model, you need to add together a "sprue," which creates a tube through which molten metal travels into the model cavity in the investment (similar plaster of paris).

You'll want to weigh each model with a short sprue attached on a jeweler's scale, and make a notation of the weight in GRAMS on a piece of paper. You'll employ this to calculate the amount of metal needed.

If you lot're casting multiple items at the same time, you can make a "tree" of the separate models, continued with sprues to the button.

The bottom base of operations shown on the last photo will fit onto a metal flask, which is a large stainless tube.

Side by side, spray the model with a light glaze of debubblizer from about 12-18 inches away. Bubbling on the model volition result in little bumps...you want to avert them at all costs!

Using thin plastic, such as transparency material, create a "collar" at the summit of the flask to contain the investment.

Step two: Mix the Investment

The next step is to mix the investment, using the casting car's vacuum bedchamber to remove any bubbles from the investment.

Using tables provided past the manufacturer of the investment, yous carefully mix dry investment with absurd water in a condom mixing bowl. With plaster, you always add the dry plaster to water, and allow the h2o to seep into the dry mix...a process called "slaking." Afterward the investment has absorbed water, you can start to mix. Kerr, the manufacturer of the investment, recommends mixing for about 3-1/2 minutes. I didn't go that long.

Step 3: Remove the Bubbles by Vacuuming

My first casting kit recommended tapping the side of the bowl to remove bubbles, but the Kaya-Cast has a vacuum chamber that lowers the pressure, causing the investment to "eddy." Kerr recommends that once the investment starts to boil, vacuum an additional twenty seconds more. When the pressure is released, the bubbling disappear!

Step 4: Cascade the Investment in the Flask and Vacuum Again

Carefully pour the investment down the side of the flask,never on the model itself. The investment will fill around the model from the bottom, which will help button whatsoever air bubbles to the pinnacle. Make sure that the investment is slightly beneath the superlative of the flask.

Identify the flask in the vacuum sleeping accommodation again, and vacuum upwards to 90 seconds.

In the video, you lot'll notice that the sound of the vacuum is different. The bell jar was not sealing completely with the silicone pad. Pressing down on the jar fixed the trouble, and since but a few seconds elapsed, I didn't have to adjust the time.

Step 5: Permit the Investment Prepare

The adjacent step is to let the investment set for about two hours. One time the investment has hardened, remove the neckband, clean the pinnacle with a putty knife, making sure that the investment is slightly beneath the top edge of the flask.

Step vi: Removing the Safe Base

Carefully twist (if possible) the safe base, and remove it. If you tin't twist it—these fiddling suckers are pretty tight—pull 1 edge slightly away from the flask, then twist. It should come off. Inspect the pigsty to make sure that there isn't any droppings.

If bits of investment get into the hole, they tin get lodged in the molten metallic and ruin your piece.

Step vii: Burn Out the Wax

Turn the flask upside down, and place on a metal screened based that's used for collecting wax and protecting your kiln. Using a kiln and the recommended exhaustion schedule from the investment manufacturer, burn out the wax. If you're using SatinCast from Kerr, the schedules are located here, or meet the graphic below.

Since my flasks were ii"x2.5", 2.5"x2.5", and 2.five"x3", I should have used the five-60 minutes burnout schedule. Larger flasks require longer burnouts. Since one of my flasks was larger than the two.5"x2.5" limit for the v-hr schedule, I went up to the 8-hr schedule. I probably could've done fine with the shorter schedule, or adjusted it a little longer.

I also saw that there was a large range of casting temperatures, which varies depending on the blazon of metallic and the blazon of design. I was casting sterling silver from Rio Grande, which has a recommended range of 800-1200°F (427°C-649°C). I did read that centrifugal casting machines will mostly cast at a college temperature, and I know that a local studio casts at 900°F (482°C) with their centrifugal machine. There can also exist problems with the quality of your casting if you cast likewise hot. And then I chose to cast at 900°F.

Then the final stage of your burnout wheel is to hold the flask at the casting temperature, which in this case was one hour at 900°F (482°C).

Kerr'due south recommended burnout bicycle

Step eight: Calculate the Amount of Metal

Have the weight from Step 1 and make the post-obit calculations:

  1. Add 10% for the button. Multiply the weight (or full weight of multiple pieces) 10 1.i.

  2. Have the new amount, and multiple by the specific gravity of the metai yous're casting. Silver is x.36, but generally rounded up to x.4.

  3. This is the weight in grams of your metal.

  4. Divide this number in half. You'll need at least 50% NEW metal (casting grain) and the other l% tin can be scrap. Ready the metal aside. Repeat for each flask.

  5. Plow on the scale, change fashion to GRAMS. Place a small container on the calibration and printing the TARE button to zero out the calibration. Add the casting grain first, and make sure that yous have at least l%. Add the rest of the scrap until you lot reach the total number needed.

Adjacent...we'll cast!