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Shapeways 3D Printing Material Experience

We have been using Shapeways' 3D printing service to produce parts that we desire with great success. In this article, we want to document our experience with the handling of various materials that we printed through Shapeways.

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White Raw Plastic

We printed with the white raw plastic the most, because it is the strongest material, based on Sculpteo's FAQ.

The white raw plastic has a matte texture surface that reminds us of sugar cubes. However, it doesn't crumble like sugar cube. The white material attracts dirt. Rubbing on it with our bare dirty hands turns the white plastic black, eventually. The following photo gives you an idea of the white raw plastic.

The white plastic is extremely resilient. It provides full strength at thickness greater than 3mm. At 2mm, it is bendable and flexible but does not break. Metal file does very little damage to it. It takes great effort to file away 1mm of material.

Drilling requires torque. Once the drill bit has cut into the plastic, you really can't manipulate the depth like wood; it will completely drill through. Therefore, specialized holes should be modeled and printed, not drilled later on.

The plastic can be cut with a hobby saw or a hack saw. Because of its resilience, cutting without downward force will result in smoothing/filing the cut. Therefore, to actually cut through the plastic, a decent amount downward force must be applied.

The material can be painted quite easily with or without primer. It seems to absorb paint, therefore, it is readily paint-able at a wide range of temperature.

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