Bronze 3D printing material

Our bronze material, manufactured using the Lost-wax Casting, is perfect for jewelry or decorative objects. Information and advice to help you print your 3D model in our Bronze material.

Colors

Finishes

Characteristics

Surface Look
Details
Strength
Flexibility

Bronze Material Guide

What is Bronze?

Sculpteo’s bronze material is composed of 90% copper and 10% tin. It comes in two finishes: Raw and Polished. Its surface is reddish – yellow and thus it is a perfect choice for decorative objects, jewelry, belt buckles etc.. Moreover, our bronze material is finished to a Standard 14K color and it is characterized by better resistance to tarnish than brass alloys. Last but not least, it has a harder surface that doesn’t gets oxidized. Bronze is an affordable option when it comes to metal 3D printing.

This material is manufactured using the Lost-wax Casting process.

What can you do with Bronze?

Our bronze models can encounter prolonged skin contact, and will cause no harm in doing so. In fact, our bronze material is particularly adept for jewelry creation, such as rings, pendants, bracelets etc..

We recommend keeping your bronze models separately from your other jewels and to clean them using a soft cloth slightly moistened with soapy water.

You should be aware that bronze parts will naturally tarnish with time and wear, and you may lose the reddish vibrance of the object. 

Pricing and delivery

The printing price of your design is calculated automatically the moment it is uploaded. As you modify your object (changing material, finishing, size, using batch control or hollowing feature, etc.) you will note that the price changes automatically. The pricing is based on a series of factors, including total volume, object size, and bounding box – to name a few.

Keep in mind that adding finishing will extend the processing time. The estimated shipping time is also calculated automatically as the object is uploaded and each time you make a modification on it. Delivery time should be added to processing time.

For more information, check our pricing page

Finishing options available for our Bronze material

Lost-wax Casting is principally used to create jewelries. Indeed, this technology is perfect to create small parts, with a great quality. The various finishing options offered by Metal Casting will allow you to give life to amazing jewelry and decorative parts.

Standard layer thickness25 µm
Accuracy

Unpolished Max: 0.8mm 
Polished Max: 0.8mm 

As a result, it is important that your uploaded file is the highest quality possible, such that no triangulation will occur in the final print. Yet, keep in mind that your 3D file cannot be up to 50Mb in size.

The layer thickness for our Bronze is 25 µm. Shrinkage may occur during the printing process. Thus, parts should be designed with the following shrinkage considerations:

  • Raw parts: up to 2% shrinkage (On Average) 
  • Polished parts: up to 3% shrinkage (On Average) 
Maximum size125 x 125 x 40 mm
Minimum wall thickness0.8 mm
Minimum wall thickness stemmed elements1 mm
Minimum wall thickness particular design aspects1 mm

3d printing casting

The walls of your design must adhere to the minimum thickness in order to guarantee the structure will be supported without breaking under its own weight. If the walls of your model are less than this minimum, you should simply thicken the walls in a 3D designing program or choose a material more adapted for thin designs.

Thus, the mind to adapt the wall thickness for the polished cast materials at least at 0.8mm. In wire, it should be 1.20mm.

A stemmed element is a design aspect that is at least twice as long as it is thick. For unsupported and stemmed elements or parts of the design with a particular design constraint, it is also important to respect a greater thickness in order to guarantee the object will not break.

Good to know

Bronze is a relatively malleable material. The most stressed and fragile areas may be distorted. We recommend that you thicken them to avoid distortions.

Do not forget

Icon to keep in mind that solidity check tool don't detect physical aberrations

Keep in mind that our solidity check tool does not detect physical aberrations such as floating parts, unstable position, parts supporting too much weight relative to their thickness, etc. Particular care must be given to the geometry of your design and the most stressed parts must be thickened.

Minimum size of details (mm)0.4
Minimum height and width details (mm)Embossed : 0.5 
Engraved: 0.4
Minimum height and width for a readable text (mm)Width: 0.5
Height 1.5
Enlargement ratio1/1

details casting

For bronze, the main determining factor in a detail minimum size is the casting process. As an object is copied into a mold then refilled with bronze, some etched and embossed details become more complicated to fill. Thus in order for a detail and text to be visible and will not break we recommend following our recommended sizes at the very least. To ensure better visibility, details’ width must be at least as big as their depth.

Enclosed parts?No
Interlocking parts?No

interlocking parts

Bronze models do not have the ability to be printed with objects enclosed within another object. This is because the object is first printed in wax, which requires supports for otherwise free-floating objects.

Minimum spacing between fixed walls0.3 mm
Minimum clearance between parts0.3 mm

space between walls castingFor a successful 3D print in the wax that will later be casted into bronze, a minimum space of 0.3 mm is required. This allows enough space for the excess was liquid to drain from between the object’s walls during the printing process. A gap of less than that will result in defects in the final product.

Assembly?No

piece assembly

Assembled pieces are currently not possible with our bronze printing option.

Hollowing?No

hollowing

As the print is first carried out in wax, the object cannot be hollowed in the manner some of our other materials are able.

Files with Multiple Objects?No


Icon to show that you can't print a 3D file containing several objects

This is not possible to 3D print a 3D file containing several objects in bronze.

Mechanical PropertiesConditionsUnitValue
Composition of our silver material%Copper: 90% 
Tin: 10% 
Elongation at break%0-70% (depends on the
temper)
Tensile moduleGPa96- 120
Tensile strengthMPa70-800 (depends
on temper)
Melting point°C913
BiocompatibilityNo

Ready to 3D print with Bronze?

With Sculpteo’s online 3D printing service you’re just a few clicks away from professional Bronze 3D printing. Your 3D model is printed with the highest quality and delivered straight to your door. 

Get started now!

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