Thursday, January 10, 2013

White Strong and Flexable

I've been on the fense about this for sometime but some recently rejected products have made me decide to do this.  Over the next several weeks I'll be removing White Strong and Flexable (WSF) as a print option from all of my models.  I've repeatedly recommended Frosted Detail for my miniatures designs and even have set the default material on everything to Frosted Detail.  However recently it seems some customers have been upset by the print quality of WSF products they have ordered.  Most notably some of my new weapons.  The poor quality of the print is not the fault of my design or a mistake by shapeways.  WSF is a BAD material for miniatures. Its detail level is not good enough and no amount of polishing will make it good enough.  On larger items the detail can be passable, especially when you want a rustic almost concreat type surface. However, on miniatures that require smooth attention to detail WSF does not cut it.

I use WSF for test prints when determining scale and durability only, I will continue to do so for my own reasons.  But, going forward all models will only be purchasable in FD and FUD only for reasons of quality.

If you are active on the shapeways community I encourage you to push shapeways towards adding additional fine detail materials such as wax or resin and to bring down the cost of fine detail printing.  Until Shapeways offers a better product (like wax or resin) we will have to make do with FD and FUD.

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