Tech Question About CAD and RP

[indieFan]

I have a question for those of you that have experience with CAD and RP (particularly multi-jet modeling):

If you built a model of something and wanted to make a stand for that model, taking into account the fact that the material shrink is not uniform through, would you still base your stand on the original drawings or would you measure the actual model that has been built to create your stand? (Note that the stand is not made from an RP.)

My hunch is that without a uniform shrink factor, one would have to measure the actual model to create a stand to any degree of accuracy. However, there are a great number of tricks in the world of engineering, and I'm hoping that someone out there would be able to give me one for this particular issue.

Thanks,
indieFan