Printing with STEEL (infused PLA)

[Bryan Eckert]

Grabbed a roll of Protopasta Steel infused PLA. It's PLA that's 60% actual steel powder (by weight I think).

Not cheap. My 500g roll cost $50. They also have Stainless, Iron (which rusts), brass and copper.

After printing you post process. You can toss it in a bag with vinegar overnight to darken it, then polish to bring out the steel shine. 

For my maiden print I whipped up a pendant in Meshy AI, and exported to 3MF. 

I decided to incorporate some of the Shadow  Red I have as "jewels", since it's PLA you can add other PLA to it.

I made the mistake of ironing the flat parts, which kicked up "dust" as it doesn't seem to like ironing.  But a brass brush cleaned it up.

After I took my dremel and wire wheel brush and started bringing out the steel. Then green polish compound and cotton wheel a while. Takes a long time, these results aren't finished yet. I'll polish it more tomorrow. 

Now while it'd be easier (and cheaper) to just dry brush, or potentially graphite the piece, this actually feels metal. It's heavy and doesn't feel like plastic at all. Pretty neat for jewelry.

[markni...@gmail.com]

Very cool stuff.

The Virtual Foundry also sells metal infused PLA.

There are ways to burn off the PLA binder and fuse the metal in a sintering kiln, but it's a long process, requiring expensive equipment.

[darrel...@gmail.com]

Many years ago I tried bronze-infused PLA with decent results.

Also, played with metal clay (not really clay), which is used in making jewelry. It is sold in a syringe, which you can mount in a 3D printer, like some people have done to make 3D printed chocolate or other foodstuffs. I heated the silver clay in the flame of a burner on a gas stove, and this came out nice. Other metal clays can be trickier.

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Hey Bryan,

Thanks for sharing this. Like Darrell - I too played with Bronze filled PLA some years ago. I believe I even showed a Bronze Skull - in another thread here on the forum. I never did try burnishing it. 

What about putting your part in some kind of tumbler - like a rock tumbler - something like that - which maybe be one way to burnish it and make it shiny. 

Also, I'm curious. Have you played a lot with the Meshy AI? Do you have a paid subscription for it? I'm really going to have to try that one out!

Now, the more important question - what is "Papa V"???

-K

[Bryan Eckert]

We printed stainless steel at work for gears and such, and then we learned that just printing them in nylon worked, and they lasted long enough to make it to scheduled machine maintenance where we could just change them out.

It was pretty cool send them out and getting back a stainless piece, but there was a lot of times things would break, usually during sending them to the sintering place.

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[Bryan Eckert]

Kurt here's a pic after some more polish. REALLY looks like a metal piece in person, the photos lose a little of the feel. 

As for Papa, he's the frontman for the band Ghost. There's a whole bunch of band lore to it but essentially the "ghouls" who make up the band get tired of his crap and kill him off at the end of an albums tour so a new one rises for the next album.

He's done all kinds of masks over the years with skull like face paint, including masks of Bella Lugosi (Papa 3) and Vincent Price (Cardinal Copia/Papa 4). 

But the band has gotten so big now and is so theatrical with their shows his latest is just a half skull mask with black face paint so his mouth is free. I really have no idea how he sung in those old masks that covered his whole face. Anyway this is the image, Im going to take the logo and put at the bottom. Not sure how it would look printed in this metal stuff.

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[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Thanks for the Papa explanation. 

As for your part - I think the pic looks DAMN AMAZING - it really DOES look like a true Metal piece!

Rock On Bro!!!

-K