My colleague Sean Ragan recently discovered that rather than pay for Shapeways’ colorized outputs, it was easier, cheaper, and more durable to buy the basic white and colorize it with a marker.
The cheapest and, reportedly, strongest material in which Shapeways models are available is called “White, strong and flexible.” I herein report that this material is easily colored with Sharpie-brand permanent markers. The ink does bleed a bit through the material, so experiment in an inconspicuous area or with a test model before attempting detailed work. Shapeways offers through-tinted colorized versions of their basic white material at increased cost; my experience with these is that the color fades rapidly, even without extremes of light or temperature. I was pleased, then, to discover that I could just order the cheap white stuff and use a Sharpie on it. Sharpies are available in a much wider range of colors, too. Here the technique is demonstrated on the most recent version of my Alphabet Die model; the bottoms of the letters are left white to enhance visibility.
6 thoughts on “Dyeing Shapeways prints with a Sharpie”
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I’m not sure if this is a plastic-based material or not, but I’ve had great luck dying ABS fabjects with ordinary polyester fabric dye. Definitely worth a try.
This is with Shapeways just as with a lot of other marketing strategies. One tries to the buyer to suggestieren which is also better a more expensive material. But the less expensive white material proves exactly the opposite. It´s definitely worth a try wand with success one saves money.
If it is ABS, Rit Dye works extremely well.
Like I did with my project from a few months ago.
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/04/sweet_robot_with_mecanum_wheels.html