3D Wax Printing

[44767]

I am concidering investing in a 3D wax printer to make very complicated one-off or short run waxes for the investment casting process. These waxes are prohibitively expensive when sourced from industry so I would like to offer the service to model engineers at a rate which would allow them to utilise this method of making waxes.

Please reply to give some feedback of what you'd use it for and if you've concidered this method before but found it to be too expensive. If this is the case what would you concider to be a reasonable price for what you wanted?

[sis]

Hi,

Out of interest what printer are your considering? And what would be the largest size wax your could create?

Thanks,
Steve

[44767]

Hi Steve, the one I have in mind is the Solid Scape Max or Pro. The build envelope is quoted as 6" x 6" x 4".

Cheers,

Mike

[sis]

Mike,

What are the costs and how many would you need to sell to break even? PM me if you prefer?



Thanks,
Steve

[44767]

Steve,

I would be using this primarily for my class 3 tank project for some of the complicated castings and will take the capital on the chin as it were. Jobs for fellow model engineers would then be charged based on the volume of consumables used times a mark up on those only. It's hard to establish exactly what charges I'd have to apply but certainly I wouldn't be trying to recoup the costs of the machine in the normal sense. Therefore the rates should be low enough to make it an option to get waxes done this way rather than having to get a RP done and make a mould from that.

Mike