You''ve seen the vendor review, you''ve heard the hype from Kansas, now you can read my review of the whole process. It''s quite an adventure taking on this new skill - the results are worth it.

Review

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Pretty interesting article.
Fascinating process.

That looks neat...roughly $20.00 for the cannon? Not bad for a one off piece without all the hassle!
Odd question...did you design the barrel to be flat sectioned like it was or is that part of the way it goes for round items? Sanding that would be easy enough if it has to come that way.
My only problem is I'm not very good with CAD...got autodesk's "quick cad" here for the last two years and have yet to be able to make a "line".

BTW, eons ago when I was resin casting on a regular basis, I came up with an interesting idea for doing steam engine smoke stacks...make a regular mold for the outside of the stack{belled/fluted DSP type} with a "drop in plug" for the hole. The stack would sit verticle in a mold and the "plug" would be positioned in place with a simple jig above and over the mold...pour and plunge the plug in and let set up. A wooden dowel soaked in oil{not dripping/soaked mind you} worked ok, but a mold material covered wooden dowel faired better...the dowel helped keep the plug straight and the mold material around gave when it came time to pull it out and didn't stick like the dowel only method could. Any mold material left in the casting was easily cleaned out...it was somewhat considered a lost casting because the chances of the mold material covered stick coming out torn was about 50/50. I'll shaddup now...

It's an amazing process and satisfying too.
The barrel is actually quite round, I didn't sand down any roundness on it so it is the way it came from the process. The open end photo looks worse than it is. I nice easy twist in a piece of steel wool would take it right down to totally smooth. As mentioned if you use a lower resolution you'll get more of a jagged look to any of the round pieces parts. I would be satisfied with putting a base coat on this piece and trying a paint job on it. Should probably go ahead and do that any way. and update the posts.

The CAD work is not to tough, you can work and re-work until you go blind if you so desire. That's one of the beauties of this.

I like the idea of the smoke stack, the plugging sounds like a cool way to get a stack.

"faceted"...that's the word I was missing before. Yeah, a lower res would be the price to pay for that.
As far as the "early dawn of slide molding" as I've called it, all one has to do in advance is determine the needed amount of resin to correctly fill the mold when "plunged"...too little will be a short pour and too much would cause waste or worse, blow out of the mold and distort the piece. I always used water to determine the right amount...simply pour in, plunge, and pour what's left in a beaker{small one} to measure what was needed...add only a tad more and hope for a small amount of flash. My buddy experimented with vent slots like an air hammer for ones plumbing...not vented outside of the mold, but inside. A small slit off the mold to a chamber would act as a vent/release for the resin and prevent blowout or destortion. He said it worked pretty well but I've never tried it. A two piece main mold with a plunge would work the same I think.

Very interesting review Scott. I have been wondering about this since I first heard about it a few months ago. I think I just might download the design software and give it a try. Thanks!

Mike

Hi Scott,

Fascinating article!!!

Now, I haven't tried the SW yet, so please bear with my questions. But if there were someway to create a head or another figure part, like hands, boots, helmets, etc, in the 3D SW either via scanning in a CD pic or via Poser, would these folks be able to cast that? If so this really does open a new avenue to all facets of the craft...

Rudi

Very interesting! Now I can use my 3D skills to scratch through the stuffs I need effortlessly. Thanks for posting this up!

Rudi, I haven't found a way to scan in an image. There is an import feature to Alibre. It can import a TON of type - including GIF, BMP, also STEP, AutoCad, IGES, SAT, RHINO

I did a quick JPG import and it doesn't do much with it. I think you could use it as a template to build or create a 3D version. I know the printapart would be able to handle printing anything you mention, if you could draw it it would create it. Extra 'gear' for figures would be easy enough.

Is there a way to import a pic of what you want to the program...if so, load one up and draw over it, then loose the pic while keeping the new line drawing{layers?}.

At the time of this review they did not have that option. You had to have some CAD capabilities, no reverse enginering.

Now, if another outside program could that and allowed you to use a 'photo' as a template and then render a vector image into the appropriate formats you'd have something.

I just saw this review, even though it's almost four years old. I've used Printapart a few times (to print 1/1000 and 1/700 figures).

Until Shapeways opens their ultra-high (no steps) wax printing service, Printapart is still the most hobbyist affordable high resolution printer available.

I find that the hardest part of the process is often verifying that the STL file is printable. A really useful tool to check STL files is the free version of netfabb, which can do some simple STL repairs.

Frank