"Shapeways White natural versatile plastic?" Topic

Hello!
I'm starting my first foray into collecting spaceships for gaming, mainly Star trekish looking ones. This has led me to the Shapeways site naturally.

I've ordered nor seen a miniature from shapeways, so I am curious please:
How bad/good is the basic option of printing in 'White Natural versatile plastic"? the basic option that states '3D printed in white nylon plastic with a matte finish and slight grainy feel.'

this is for spaceships gonna be around 3-5" big.

A friend told me to always go for the 'Smooth fine detail plastic' but that doubles the price for some of the ships I'm looking at.

and any advice on using shapeways in general would be appreciated.

-Stew

My experience is that prints from the White Natural versatile plastic are fair. Fine details though don't come out all that great. The grain doesn't tend to be too distracting. I've gotten some with the polished finish which I like better through.

The Smooth fine detail plastic is much better at retaining fine details, but is much less durable, so it's a tradeoff.

I ordered some WW I biplanes in that plastic. One was a Russian Ilya Muromets plane, the world's very first strategic bomber. It had up to a crew of 12 men -- it was one of the largest airplanes to fly in that war. The model is around 4" in wing span, quite large for a 1/144 scale model, around 2.5 times the size of a typical fighter from that war.

The texture is a bit rough. It is not smooth, even after applying craft acrylic paint. I would love to order another two of this model. They're not cheap, however. I would order two more of the same, rough plastic, but that is my personal preference.

I would recommend you order one copy of a particular ship model, in both types of plastic. They will take a few weeks to arrive, but I think you will be glad you ordered two test models. Paint them up, fully. Then you will know how to proceed with the rest of your model orders, being able to do a direct, side-by-side comparison. No matter which way you go, you will likely be happy that you did the comparison, before making a more serious commitment. Cheers!

thanks guys for the feedback!

I repainted a Romulan Micro Machines ship 25 years ago. They are the right size for the little games we play.

The varnish is still tacky!

Other ships were left alone in their original state, hehe.

The white versatile plastic is too grainy as is, at least for me. But i did see a tutorial or two about making it smoother. Spray several light coats of a gloss varnish until the roughness fades away. I've not done it yet (I lost the model I had printed in that and can't find the bastard!) But the after pics were much improved.

@Borderguy190,

I ordered a WWI airplane in white versatile plastic and I tried the spray coat method. I used grey primer spay and sanded with fine sandpaper. So three rounds of spray and sanding afterwards. The results were a reasonably smooth, almost shiny model.

Cheers!

Gallo