Tips for painting or recolouring 3D printed steel

I’ve printed a belt buckle for a costume through shapeways in polished grey stainless steel. The colour is much darker and more matt than I expected from the sample images online (it looks like the matt black samples). In hindsight I should have chosen the plain stainless steel and dirtied that up in the recesses (I’m aiming for a colour/texture not unlike an infinity orb, with darker/dirtier recesses and brighter on the surface).

Im hesitant to apply a silver acrylic or anything like that, as seems a shame to go to the effort of printing in metal, to paint over with a basic metallic coloured paint. I really have no idea on how to proceed with this though as have never used a metal paint or anything similar. Can anyone give me some recommendations of methods, products, techniques, anything that might help me get a dirty sort of dull gloss silver/steel colour on the raised portions without reducing the real metal appearance?

Have you tried polishing it with something designed for metal? Maybe fine steel wool?

Mike J. said:

Have you tried polishing it with something designed for metal? Maybe fine steel wool?

Click to expand...

Thanks Mike! No I’ve not thought of polishing it, I think that could be useful though and help with the matt-ness. I’ll look into polishing, and how that may work with some painting or other colour adjusting

Good luck : )