I've always wanted to know what Shapeways WSF material (laser-sintered nylon powder) looks like under a microscope so I decided to get one and stick the piece under it to find out.

If you've even ordered from Shapeways you know how much powder is on the pieces. I figured the first order of business would be to put the powder all by itself under a microscope:


To provide some size context, here is the powder alongside a human hair:


And here is a close-up of the hair and powder:

The size of the grains of nylon seem to vary from about 1/10th up to 1/2 the width of a hair. I made a VIDEO OF THE POWDER AND HAIR.


I then put a piece under the microscope. Of course I made a VIDEO OF THE SURFACE OF A PIECE too. Here is the surface of the piece:


Here is the same piece at greater magnification:


There was a grain of metal embedded in the surface:


I decided to sand down the piece and look at the smooth sanded surface:


Here is a stronger magnification of the sanded surface:



Compare that to a piece I polished in a rock tumbler:


Here is another view of the polished surface:


Here is the polished piece with a grain of nylon powder sitting on the surface:



Clearly the pieces come from the printer with an outer shell of partially bonded powder. Sanding the pieces seems to remove that shell but leave a bunch of shredded fibers. Polishing makes them silky smooth.

Very interesting. Pretty sure I spotted a Higgs boson in there.

I want to put your Subatomic Cylinder Cube under a microscope

One request: piece with a bit of cyanoacrylate applied?

Huh it turns out to be much less impressive that I thought it would be:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkknTnZEODM

It soaks down into the crevices and barely coats the pieces at all. Just enough to make them a bit reflective and refractive.

It was hard to take a picture that actually captured this but here goes:

And: