My son wants to make a class ring. He’s nearing the end of the design, but I notice he has a lot of little details - think musical notes. How small of a detail can be included and still show up? Or, what can be done to make the details show up?
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If its a lost wax investment should be able to get a fair bit of detail. Spin casting it would be the best because it forces the metal into all the little spots of the mold, but the spaces spincaster is questionable.
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Here’s what he has so far. I guess he’s added some detail in the bare areas now but this is probably the finest detail. Another option we are considering is shapeways printing them.
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I would assume if you printed it out and then just did everything like you would for a normal wax carving it should work. Definitely would want to spin cast it so the metal got forced into the fine detail work.
Those tiny raised details are likely to cause a couple of problems totally aside from whether it can be cast. It looks unwearable. It looks very fragile.
Any design for casting in metal needs to resist the forces created as the metal shrinks on cooling. The fine continuous raised lines are likely to crack and separate from the main body of the ring.
I’d propose making a test casting of something like a simple band with some of the raised details which could be quickly printed then tried with a smaller amount of metal invested.
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Casting details aside, I don’t follow the unwearable comment. Fragile? Many rings are far more delicate than this and they seem to hold up just fine.
Usually across the back of the band details are inset not raised. Usually the band edge is thicker than the design details to the inside of the ring. Seeing this I think of how it’s going to get caught on things in a closed hand (snagged knits come to mind) and how it’s going to feel on the adjacent fingers.
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That was a preliminary design I posted. He’s since added the raised edge as well as some filler detail. The real concern is how well the details will come out.
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If it doesn’t work out, maybe it could be engraved on and then filled in with a contrasting color to keep it from snagging. I don’t think I have seen a ring with a raised area on the backside. You might try 3D printing a prototype and see if it is hard to wear for some reason (snagging or digging into the hand)
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already 3D printed and the raised edges keep the part in the middle from being a problem.
we aren’t much for settling. If we want embossed details, it’ll have embossed details one way or another.
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Here’s a shot of some detail I cast recently. Printed in castable wax resin, vacuum cast in white bronze. It’s about .25" diameter, you can see the 50 micron layer lines.
Your design looks fine. You can see a little knurling around the perimeter that is extremely fine detail.
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Thanks! That’s reassuring.
What did you print with? If you get some castable resin, I’m more than happy to resin print it for you!
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He’s been printing them on our Saturn. What castable resin do you recommend?
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I don’t have a favorite… trying the range of available castable resins is a bit out of my budget. Which every you do try, make sure to share the results so maybe I can adopt it as a favorite!
I’ve been using the formlabs castable purple resin. It’s great for detail but too expensive. And the investment I’m using has been breaking, even the stuff supposedly formulated for this exact purpose. I doubt I’ll order more of either.
This guy on YouTube has a lot of good 3d printing > metal casting videos
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This MAY apply here.
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