Hi NY friends!
I’m looking to get three 3D numbers made that will resemble hotel door numbers. They should be about 2" high, 3/8" thick and look like metal, but could be made out of plastic or resin if we can get the finish to look right.
Something like this: Hotel Door High-Res Stock Photo - Getty Images 34
Anyone out there able to create something like this?
Thanks!
Rachel
Hi Rachel,
to create models, that have a metal look, you can go with SLS printers, which sinter metal powder with a laser.
This technique can use all sorts of metals, with incredible details, but the prints are very expensive. With average prices of 10-20$ per cm³ printed, you will pay hundreds of dollars for your letters.
Resins can’t contain any composite to look like metal, you could only paint them.
Lastly (and this is, where I come in) there are FFF/FDM machines, which are the standard 3d printers.
These usually use colored plastic strings to melt in a nozzle and extrude your model.
The quality is decent, but more importantly the price per cm³ is very cheap.
As I said the plastic strings (called “filament”) are usually just normal plastic, but there are brands like Colorfabb or Proto Pasta, that produce filament out of common plastics blended with metal powder.
The available metal-plastic composites are:
bronze
copper
brass
stainless steel
iron (magnetic)
All of those (especially the first 3) are made to be polished, to look like metal.
I do offer bronze, copper and brass. I’ve printed, sanded, polished and finished several prints in all those three materials, and it would be no problem, to print those letters for you.
If needed I could also design the letters for you.
One of the first prints in brass was the 3dHubs mascot Marvin. Pictures of the print can be seen below.
If you want to get in contact with me to get your own brass print made, you can contact me via my hub at:
www.3dhubs.com/siegen/hubs/marius 7
Just start an enquiry (“contact this hub”), to discuss further details.
Colorfabb (the producer of bronze, copper and brass) is setteled in europe and due to incredibly high shipment cost, there are only a few hubs in america, that offer those metal composites, especially because the brass composite is their newest invention and not that popular so far.
Although I don’t live in America, it wouldn’t be a problem to print the models for you (upon request sanding, polishing etc. can be done). The shipment cost is fairly low, from my experience it’s 15$, but for larger orders it’s free!
Kind regards,
Marius Breuer
PS: the brass print looks greenish due to a special polish, that I used. Your polish can be customly changed. Sharp edges and cavities aren’t polishable, that’s why you see some unpolished material at the edge of Marvins face and in his eyes.
The metal composites can be sanded to get a flawless smooth surface, in the case of Marvin, I selected 0,15mm layer resolution, theoretically I could go up to 0,05mm, but usually this isn’t necessary due to the ease of sanding.
Hi there! I need them by friday, unfortunately. Let me know if you think that’s possible?
Thanks!
It’s possible. Depending on how many numbers and the size.
Hi,
we can print with gold color filament ABS that will resemble gold metal color if that is good for you, please visit my hub to order. Thanks
wow! Man. This is an amazing Marvin. You should post this on one 3dhubs.com/talk/Marvin
Marius,
What process are you using to achieve such a nice finish on these pieces? Sanding and polishing by hand makes my hands cramp up!
Thanks,
Mark
I first used a bit of sandpaper to remove blobs on the outside, then I started with steelwool to bring the metal look out. After that I proceeded with polishing disks (clothlike disks). My preference were 100mm diameter disks on a drill press at slow speeds around 500rpm or lower, faster speed heats the model and deforms it. Before polishing I held a file to the spinning disk to clean it, after that I held a pre-polishing paste to the wheel and polished the print. Next up the last step again, but with the final polishing paste/block. For finer details I used the same method but on a dremel. Optional you can use polishing bg liquids like brasso instead of the buffing wheel, I used both
