So long story short, I haven't painted mini's in years. Before putting paint to plastic on an FFG model (those things cost monies!), I decided to get an Imperial miniature from Mel's. I went with the Imperial Customs Corvette ( https://www.shapeways.com/product/5S8L9F79A/armada-customs-corvette?optionId=56674972 ).

So I get it and immediately notice it feels very rough and somewhat powdery. Couple drops of dish detergent in some water, an old tooth brush, and a session of sun drying help with the powdery feeling but it's incredibly rough. I decide to power through and brush paint a coat onto the base to see how it would look.

Man, it looks rough. Did I get a bad print or is this a side effect of using the default material instead of the "premium" materials available? If I put paint on it as is, it will look like an Imperial ship with herpes bumps all over....

100% Materials Selection, regrettably.

White Strong Flexible and Black Strong Flexible, generally have a powdery, textured surface... Its part and parcel of the way the product is put together... Sometimes you even have striations depending oin which way the model was oriented when it was printed...

Your best bet, to try to smooth it out in the meantime, is to either buff-polish it really hard ... or to attack it with a thin runny filler like a varnish, before priming and painting...

because its all about Damage Control now.......

(The Frosted plastics are basically assembled a different way - the laser sintering leaves a completely different surface and production state - but is generally considered ot be worth the expense in comparison.)

Now, I would be trying to get onto who I consider to be my Local God of Modelling Advice - Vykes - I have the general skill, but he has the specific knowledge of the material through trial and error, I believe...

I kind of figured that's what the problem was. Wish Mel would put that disclaimer out there unless he did and I just missed it. Great way to either waste 30 bucks or sink a lot more effort into something I was not anticipating.

I kind of figured that's what the problem was. Wish Mel would put that disclaimer out there unless he did and I just missed it. Great way to either waste 30 bucks or sink a lot more effort into something I was not anticipating.

Its nothing to do with Mel, its shapeways, and they do describe the White/Black as having a Powdery, rough surface... Unfortunately...

Well, they describe it as:

: White nylon plastic with a matte finish and slight grainy feel.

"A Slight Grainy Feel" is definitely they way of trying to hide the fact your surface will be textured....

I see a "slightly grainy feel" at the bottom of the page, now lol. Ah well, live and learn.

I kind of figured that's what the problem was. Wish Mel would put that disclaimer out there unless he did and I just missed it. Great way to either waste 30 bucks or sink a lot more effort into something I was not anticipating.

Its nothing to do with Mel, its shapeways, and they do describe the White/Black as having a Powdery, rough surface... Unfortunately...

No doubt, I assumed it was materials and merely used Mel's name to garner interest and provide a point of reference.

That's pretty shady of Shapeway.... if you look at the link, the page is designed to pull attention to the right side so you select the materials and checkout. That disclaimer should be there as well if it weren't designed to mislead.

That's pretty shady of Shapeway.... if you look at the link, the page is designed to pull attention to the right side so you select the materials and checkout. That disclaimer should be there as well if it weren't designed to mislead.

Its one of those things that's misleading, but not legally so...

Like "Diet" being "Better" for you. Kinda thing.

Agreed

Aye, unfortunately Drassy's 100% right on this one, it is material choice and it's a hard thing to 'fix'. The good news is that the ships are harder to break than the premium materials, the bad news is that no one will be able to tell if it is or isn't broken given how rough the finish is. It's not incurable by any means, but it will require effort to get it to the same standard as other models, and your painting style may require adjustments to get the most from it. Here's a WSF X-wing ship that I had to work.

WSF is more a project material for me, it will always require effort because it blots out details like few others, but in certain ship selections with large open sections, that should be perfectly okay (Mon Cals and such in particular). Now, FUD and even FED isn't perfect, you get lines now and then but they can be either filed, filled, or just painted over. So there is no 'perfect print', but WSF often requires you to carefully 'clean' every major plate in order to get some more concrete lines. That is, if it exists in the first place. At worst, you'll need to paint the surface lines on, which can be done. To get a smoother finish, I've heard future floor polish or some other thicker varnishes work well, but you may need to use a dremel with a brush (not a grinder, but a simple brush) to buff the surface clean. And me, well, I actually watered down some Milliput and scrubbed it on the hull of a WSF ship like a cheese grater in order to get a satisfactory looking finish. It takes work, and most ships are recoverable if you're willing to go the artistic route and paint on the details yourself.

Now, Mel has said many times that FUD is the best material overall (FED being a sort of diminishing return, which I can vouch for even if it's nice) until the Black High Definition Acrylate came on the market, and even then it's more about 'the right tool for the right job' rather than one or the other. There's even a comparison link on his store's page, but it's very easily missed and FUD is expensive. Some people are just really good at making WSF look good, I don't think I'm one of them.

As a rule of thumb you should always go with ultra detailed frosted for ships and their parts. The difference is what you no doubt was looking for and to me it's worth the extra money. For bases and stuff white or black strong works just fine for me.

Here is the perfect comparison: a scratch built turret for a project of mine from parts made from the two plastics: the two barrels for the center turret are made from strong plastic... (you can see the texture) The turret they are attached to (and the ones surrounding it) are (Mel's) turbo laser turrets in two different sizes made from ultra detail frosted plastic. See how smooth they are; they look like regular model kit parts and they hold detail very well.

I think I might have a solution to restore a lot of the model. I'm going to cut a few sections of small balsa wood sections I have and varnish them to lend them some strength. Then I'll cement some fine grain sandpaper to them and use the different cuts to restore more of the flat area. As far as the rest of the model goes, I'll smooth out as much as I can and sculpt it as best I can with a standard hobby knife. Worse case scenario, I'll turn it into a debris field and call it a day xD

I ordered some nebulon b frigates in white strong flexible and they look like nothing but sand grains. I tried again with the most expensive material I could get, which is the extreme frost. It was three times the price, but the results are AMAZING. There isn't a single grain or defect. I will always go with extreme frost, even over ultra.

Edit

Here is a picture. The left one is the extreme frosted and the right is the white plastic. I feel you, I ordered a bunch of ships only to find out how grainy they were.

Ya, Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD) is the only way to go for shapeways. I have orders about a dozen ships from Mel by now, and all are FUD. They are look great, but it does come at a steeper cost. But you get what you pat for.

It should also be noted that even the top quality doesn't produce the greatest results. You'll get the grain in recesses and such anyway...one side is gonna be grainy whilst the other is crisp. I probably wont be buying capital ships from shapeways again because of it.

When you have limited funds but want the ships i go for the white ones. Figure I want to play, not oogle a super detailed ship

I found something at Hobby Lobby today that I'm using to work it over. It's slow work but is effective thus far. "Professional Hobby Sanding Files" with 120 grit on one side, 240 on the other. Dimensions are 6 1/2" in length and 1/8" in width.