The Surface Treatment of Rapid Prototype

When companies are developing new products,they need to make prototypes for the design.A prototype is to test the feasibility of product design, find out the deficiencies,and further improve it to make it perfect. There are three main purposes of making prototypes,

1.Verify the appearance,structure and dimensions of prototypes etc.

2.Display on the exhibition

3.Sell as finished products directly

If you want to sell the prototypes just like the products,you need to make the surface finish look as close as real products.Without the surface finish,the prototypes are just prototypes.Now we’d like to show you some commonly-used finish techniques for the prototypes.

Painting:We can paint any colors on the prototypes according to client’s requirements.We could paint the parts in the dust-free painting room to make the surface as close as real products.

Silk-printing:We can silk print logo,words or pictures on the surface of the prototypes.

Plating:The prototypes before plating need to be very smooth.Any dirt is not allowed.Then we soak it in the chemistry liquids.There are two types of plating,electroplating and electroless plating.In general,plastic and metal parts could be plated.The effect of plating plastic parts is better than metal parts.But PC parts do not have good plating effect.

Sand blasting:Sandblasting is a process where compressed air is used to force special sand or other fine particulates at high pressure through a nozzle to remove paint and corrosion from metal and other materials prior to painting or other surface preparations.

Brush:Brush the surface to get slim marks so that the texture of the prototypes will look nice.

UV curing:Paint the prototypes with clear paint,cured by UV light to make the prototypes brighter and protect it not being scratched.