Home wax 3D printing business?

[shewdz]

Hi All,

been stalking this forum for a while, but decided to take the plunge and join as i'm really interested in your thoughts.

bit of background, i work in a design studio (non jewellery related) which uses a lot of 3D printers for concept models. at the moment the company is selling off a solidscape wax 3D printer at a very reasonable price. my question is, if i was to buy it, is there a business in just producing wax printed models for home jewellery makers? I cant think of better people to ask then the people that use this forum.

I know there are a few big companies out there doing it, just wondered if it would be a service anyone here would be interested in?

Cheers,

Shewdz

[Nick martin]

As someone who's actively looking to purchase a 3D printer, I for one would use such a service instead of investing thousands in a printer if you were reasonably priced!

Nick

[ps_bond]

Depends how you work. Having space models of designs is vastly more useful to me than sending a file away for printing; I can assess the problems with the designs far more readily from a physical model than from a screen.

At the moment my workflow on that is design, print, mould, shoot waxes then send the waxes away for casting.

[shewdz]

so there might be a bit of business in it then. as the system isn't going to cost me a massive amount i would ensure my costs would stay competitive. off the top of my head i would suggest between £20-30 for a printed ring, but i would be open to printing just about anything.

the printer i would use is a solidscape 3Z PRO

with prices like that would it still be of interest to people?

[Melanie]

Sounds like a great opportunity - and yes would defo be of interest to me :)

[shewdz]

so with a little bit of interest i might give this a go. anyone interested in supplying me with a test CAD file in .STL format? i'll print the part for you and send it you if you just cover the postage. so a few quid for a printed model basically. it would give me a feel for printing jewelry as apposed to the standard stuff i print at work. maybe looking for 2 small jobs from 2 different people? level of complexity shouldn't be an issue as the system can print down to 25micons feature size.

[ps_bond]

I've got a test file I've been using on resin printers if you're interested.

[Melanie]

We could send a cad file as well :)

[josef1]

Solidscape are great machines but a bit spendy to run and also take a while to print in my opinion but that been said give a great surface and are good to cast. I can also give you a file to try with if you want

[shewdz]

ok, to sound semi professional i've set up and e-mail account for this. if you three send the files to waxsolutions@mail.com and i'll have a play with them. obviously at this stage i cant guarantee quite how long it will take. all i ask is that i can post pictures of the printed parts on here to hopefully drum up a bit more interest for further work. and of course, lots of further work if your happy with the prints. ;)

[ajda]

I'm watching this space with interest...
Alan

[shewdz]

We could send a cad file as well :)


Thanks for the file peter. I'll look at getting it printed on monday ( the system is still set up at work). Still offering 1 or 2 other free samples if anyone would be interested in wax 3d printing. Would be very interested in a sample from melanie as i really like the work you have on your website.

[ps_bond]

No rush - the printer should cope fine with it, but it'll give you something to play with that will be very fragile in handling. I'd suggest batching up a few of them on the same print run and seeing how little abuse they take :)
One thing that occurred to me - the pricing is in line with what other bureaus charge, but they have economies of scale in having enough prints to do more than one on a run; they also have (hopefully) contingency plans in place when things go phut. In one case I've seen the plan seemed to be "keep churning out rubbish prints and hope no-one notices", but never mind!

[Melanie]

Will defo get my hubby to e-mail a file over this weekend (CAD is very much his department!) :)