Shapeways Tsuba

[Rustedness]

A store on Shapeways sells mhs compatible tsuba pieces, in either plastic or metal. These are apparently meant to sandwich between two mhs pieces. Anyone had any experience with these?

http://www.shapeways.com/search?q=tsuba+mhs&type=product

First time posting, long-time lurker. Hopefully I'm not breaking any rules. If so, I shall delete this post.

[FenixFire]

From my years of prototype experience, if it has any chance of dueling contact go metal. If it is an actual Tsuba it would go on the blade pressed against the hilt. Basically a handguard on a katana.

[jbkuma]

You should also be aware that shapeway does a really nice job, but 3D printing does not come out as smoothly and beautifully as the preview renderings. These are mostly flat discs, so it may be minimized, but you will see the layers on the side for the standard material options. Some of the more expensive options may be a bit cleaner.

[Greenie]

A store on Shapeways sells mhs compatible tsuba pieces, in either plastic or metal. These are apparently meant to sandwich between two mhs pieces. Anyone had any experience with these?

http://www.shapeways.com/search?q=tsuba+mhs&type=product



First time posting, long-time lurker. Hopefully I'm not breaking any rules. If so, I shall delete this post.

I suspect one drop and the plastic one would break. Definitely go with metal or you could make one ;)

14167

[FenixFire]

Greenie,

Actually the SLS vinyl should hold up fine if dropped but, will not hold up to repetitive abuse. Like mentioned above SLS process will give a medium bead-blast surface texture. This is because it is produced by using a high-intensity laser to sinter (melt) the vinyl powder into a hardened shape. The amount of texture will be dependent on the machine and the resolution settings used. Higher resolution means a more expensive machine to amortize out and much longer run time, both result in higher part costs. As with Darth-Chasms DC-04 there are many ways to finish SLS parts, but they are time consuming if you want a smooth surface.

It did not list ABS or PLA (FDM printing), with a thin part like these I would not suggest this process anyway for the reason Greenie mentioned.

If metal cast it should hold up ok,easily $40-$100+ depending on material of the metal casting. Basically they will use an sls or sla process to print a "Wax" pattern and then use traditional investment casting process to get the metal casting. These will have good surface quality and can be polished. If printed metal (mostly PLA resin with metallic dust, then resin is burned out) it will tend to be brittle and micro-porous. If Metal SLS (very unlikely as these are extremely high-end machines reaching upwards of a million dollar investment) it will be $100+ for aluminum or zinc.

[jbkuma]

14168 Here is my pommel insert which is SLS vinyl. For this application I found the texture to be desirable. I don't have a picture of it from before I glued it in. You might also want to know that when you order something in a color it is printed in white and the surface is dyed, so it isn't the color the entire way through.

[Rustedness]

Thankyou all for your responses. Should've specified that I'd go for the metal, no way am I using plastic on this build. Still researching other avenues like Greenie's, but it's all kinda moot til I get my parts and figure out what will and won't work.

Thankyou again!