I Need something created from Shapeways

Droidboy

Sr Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
So who here does design work and uses Shapeways? I have a small part I need designed that will probably take one of you you geniuses like 10 minutes.

Anyone able to help?

Gregg
 
I have access to SolidWorks and have had several things made at ShapeWays. Let me know what you're looking for.

The Jason
 
I just messages St. Louis kid. Ill let anyone else know if I still need help. Thanks for the quick interest. I really appreciate it.
 
I have a related question,

can shapeways materials be used to make a shoe midsole? not the bottom sole but the middle part. Im curious to know if there is a 3d print material thats flexible and wear resistant enough to do this?
 
The short answer is yes but it can be rather complicated. There are a lot of examples of flexible objects and even 3d printed 'fabric' but they can be pretty involved. Most of the plastic options in white are a little flexy but I don't know that they’d work for what you want. I'd say to poke around on the Shapeways forums as they know a bit more about working and designing with the different materials in mind.
 
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BTW....a big thanks to TheStLouis Kid for drawing this up and making it available. I love this board. Able to take an idea and turn it into reality in hours.

Gregg
 
BTW....a big thanks to TheStLouis Kid for drawing this up and making it available. I love this board. Able to take an idea and turn it into reality in hours.

Gregg


I'm happy it worked out, I also had many of my C3P0 parts done to me specs by Shapeways thanks to a member who designed them for me on the c3P0 club, they turned out awesome!!!

Gerardo
 
thanks dark, st, ill look into that. :)

ive been looking for a way to replace rotted polyurethane midsoles on older nikes that resembled the original ones instead of just doing straight sole swaps from other styles that didnt really match.

I have originals to measure off of, but how can I go about making a 3d model to be printed?
 
Well, I can really only think of two ways that are free/cheap.

One, download your choice of free 3d modeling programs and start learning what you need to make your own 3d model.

Blender
3d sketchup
123d design

This may be what is needed to get the desired stiffness/flexibility of an insert.

The other way is a bit fussy and I can't promise how it will turn out in the end but if you look up 123d catch they offer a free program that makes your digital camera a 3d scanner of sorts. There are various techniques to get the best result but you can eventually get the 3d file they send back to you into a .stl file which is what you need to in order to have it printed by a service.

This way won't be precise and it needs some clean up of the model in other programs before you have something to print but it is all do-able for free and there are plenty of tutorials out there on the basic process.
 
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thanks dark, im all about free n cheap hehe. ill research those programs. I may try the camera thing first to give me a rough shape and then clean it up in another program. the shape I need isint that complicated tho, just curvy. thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

My fist idea was to get a block of suitable material and cut it down into shape somehow, but I think in the end thats no easier than this approach and wouldnt look as nice either. I wasant sure if 3d printing had developed enough yet to be able to do this project or not tho.
 
As far as being far enough along I really don't know if the materials will work out quite like you need and it may be a bit spendy. It doesn’t take long for the volume get higher than you think.

I wish I could be a bit more technical help but I've only done the research part, not actually worked extensively with it hands on but as I've looked around there tend to be a lot of great tutorials on the net.

Oh, one last thing. Since you mentioned making it out of foam at some point if you get a bunch of thin layers that are the right consistency you can use 123d Create to make a file to cut out the layers and put them on top of each other in order based on your 3d model. Mostly then it is just about getting the right kind of adhesive to hold up to all the punish you dish out on your shoe.
 
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Ya thats the other thing, cost. Im just doing this for myself, so I want to do it on a shoestring (pun intended lol) budget.

Is there a type of foam/material out there that resembles polyurethane that could be cut and molded with an xacto and sanded and painted? im pretty sure I could hold layers together with e6000 or zap, its held up really well on all the other sole swaps ive done with it. id prolly need something thats 1" thick, or .5" at bare minimum.
 
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