Wood Grain 3d Printer Filament

Download files and build them with your 3d printer laser cutter or cnc.

Wood grain 3d printer filament.

The folks at aleph objects makers of lulzbot printers were kind enough to provide me with a spool of colorfabb woodfill to be clear a wood filament is not a filament made out of wood. These days wood filament is still pla based but the wood is instead integrated in the form of wooden fibers. If you don t do this the filament s wood particles will burn creating a sticky black mess in the printer head. The first filaments were pla based filaments with integrated sawdust.

Ever tried 3d printing wood. Wood filament on the other hand will readily absorb stain as did the carpet after spilling a nearly full container. However since the whole point of wood filled filament is to have the texture color and look of wood the filler putty might take away from that because it won t be. Sanding a wood 3d print is very similar to sanding a normal piece of wood.

Yet with wood filament you can even start with coloring during printing. The presence of these particles gives the 3d printed parts the aesthetics of real wood. The mix is usually about 70 polymer to 30 wood fibers and you can buy spools of it just like any other filament on the market. Thingiverse is a universe of things.

Typically the filament consists of around 30 wood particles but the exact number may vary depending on the brand. Wood based filaments are typically a composite that combines a pla base material with wood dust cork and other powdered wood derivatives. When you have a 3d wood print project and for some reason the printing is interrupted don t forget to remove the 3d print material from your printer head. So priming is not actually needed before painting.

Similar to painting when it comes to wood stain what s good for wood is most certainly good for wooden 3d prints. This is great for emulating realistic wood grain in your models. The early experiments however showed that sawdust wasn t the best solution for either wood 3d printing nor wood filaments. When the 3d printing process is finished you can start the final touches.

As mentioned earlier changing the print temperature will produce subtle color changes. Wood 3d printing was born around 2012. We used an einstein bust as a test piece because it has a number of contours that we wanted to highlight. Moreover painting directly over the 3d printed model will ensure that the wood grain remains visible.