5 years bronzeFill

Originally posted in May 2019

This week it has been exactly five years that we announced bronzeFill at the Fabcon show in Erfurt. The fantastic material was the first of its kind: our unique PLA/PHA compound with real bronze in it. Straight from the printer parts look almost laser sintered with a matte finish and with a bit of sanding and polishing the bronze particles will start to shine & shimmer unlike any 3d printing filament you have seen before. The weight of the material is something special as well, over 3 times heavier than our regular PLA/PHA.

 

One of the first bronzeFill prints on the Ultimaker Original at Fabcon 2014. Translation from German: 3D Printing with Bronze

The uniqueness of this filament was not lost on our users. The announcement was made in May and we took in a lot of pre-orders. A lot. Finally, once we had produced the first batch and started shipping we were sold immediately.

bronzeFill has been a massive hit ever since that summer five years ago and the one that has been in backorder the most. It is one of those bestsellers which is almost constantly in production. Its continuous popularity is testament to its quality and to celebrate we have collected some of the most amazing prints that we have seen. Mind you, these are only a small collection of all the fantastic prints out there (click on the words “Original post” to go to the blog for more information).

Curious how you can post-process bronzeFill and our other metal filled filaments? Check out our collection of handy tutorials and examples here.

 

Steve Cox

Special mention goes to Steve Cox, who has proven himself to be one of the masters of bronzeFill. He has shared his excellent work over the years. Below a few examples (and we have one in the office as well!)

Original post

 

Original post

 

Awards

Our special filaments are ideally suited for special occasions, like awards. We have printed several ourselves and have seen quite a few popping up online. Below are our examples:

Bio Plastics Award Original post

 

Lodewijk van der Grinten Prijs Original post

 

Scanned and printed carnaval statue Original post

 

Gifts

bronzeFill can also make terrific gifts. The extra weight gives that quality look and feel that normal plastics don’t have.

Tony Short’s amazing colorFabb themed gift box  Original post

 

Rein van der Mast’s fountain pen Original post

 

“It belongs in a museum!”

Even museum pieces, replicas or just awesome prints can be made with bronzeFill.

Andreas Mielonen’s ancient Greek helmet Original post

 

Esteban Pacheco’s epic Octolamp Original post

 

gCreate’s Rocket Ship Original post

 

This is by no means a complete listing of all the amazing prints we have seen, but only a short summary. It has been a fan favorite ever since its launch half a decade ago in 2014 and was followed by copperFill, brassFill (since discontinued) and steelFill in our special filament range.

bronzeFill ships daily, worldwide and from stock (mostly). Click on the image below to go directly to our webshop:

woodFill: 5 years of special 3D printing filaments

Today it is exactly five years ago that we launched woodFill at the 3D Print Show in London. It was our first special 3D printing filament! Let’s look back!

Design: https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-39788

Our first special filament was woodFill. In our first year of existence (this was in 2013 – ancient times by now) we had a great filament, PLA/PHA, in the market and we were already looking for more filaments to be added to the portfolio. Someone asked us a very serious question: “Why don’t you make a wood filament?” We thought: “Why not?” Granted, we weren’t the first, but the filament world was still young and with our compounding partner FKuR, located in Willich, Germany, we went to work.

 

Elephant design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:257911 Both the elephant and acorn were printed on the Ultimaker 2+ with a 0.6mm nozzle and a 0.2mm layer height. Print speed was 40mm/s with 20% infill and a nozzle temperature of 210C. Part of the acorn was printed with corkFill.

True story: We produced the first test run of filament late October 2013, put it on the printer and… it worked! Flawlessly! This was mere days before we were off to the 3D Printing Show in London, early November 2013. With the few spools we had we printed a lot of examples, put them in our suitcases and off we went! (By train, it was still the olden days…)

The very first woodFill print… ever

The 3D Printing Show was an amazing experience. As luck (or mad negotiation skills) would have it, we were placed right at the entrance. As anyone who has ever printed with woodFill knows, the material really smells like wood when printing. And that was exactly what the visitors smelled when they entered the show floor.

As heard many, many times during those 3 days:

“It smells like… wood.”

“That’s because there is real wood in the filament.”

“But how did you get the smell in there?”

“Because there is real wood in the filament.”

We admit, the main component is our signature PLA/PHA, but the wood is what makes the filament truly special.

We started with two variations: woodFill Fine and woodFill Coarse. Problem was that the Coarse could only be printed with a 0.8 nozzle and sales reflected that people were not eager to switch nozzles a lot. Only after a few months we discontinued woodFill Coarse and focused entirely on woodFill Fine. But a few times every year someone informs if there are still some spools of the Coarse left.

 

We have literally sent out thousands of woodFill spools all over the world and it has been a solid hit with our customers, old and new. Its ease of printing (can your printer print PLA? If yes, you can print woodFill. If no, buy a new printer) has really helped, but again: the smell of wood during printing, that authentic woodshop idea has been appealing for a lot of printers. And be honest: the prints look like they have been carved from… wood.

Below are some (but not all, at all) great examples of woodFill creations:

Tony Short’s gift box. Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/colorfabb-gift-box/

 

Megafone amplifiers by AKLIH. Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/aklih/

 

Print+ headphone. Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/printplus/

 

Replicas of historic church figures. Original post: https://learn.colorfabb.com/excellence-woodfill-3d-printing/

 

Some printed examples on the Lulzbot Mini: https://learn.colorfabb.com/woodfill-lulzbot/

 

After woodFill we expanded the range with bambooFill (since discontinued) and corkFill (still available). Both great materials, but woodFill will have a special place in our portfolio as our first special filament. Don’t believe us? Read the five star reviews on our website:

woodFill is available in our webshop and through our reseller network. We offer both 600 grams and 1800 grams (XL) spools.

Part of this blog was previously published in another blog

5 years at the TCT Show

This year it’s the fifth consecutive year at the TCT Show, one of the highlights 3D printing shows for us and, we’re sure, in general. We love coming back to Birmingham every year and introduce the latest and greatest we have to offer. This year we focus on the Stacker 3D printers and our recently launched Color on Demand service. In the past we have launched nGen_FLEX, nGen_LUX and other great materials at the TCT Show. Drop by at stand C48!

 

Below are some impressions of our previous stands (inside jokes added – you had to be there):

 

TCT 2014 aka the first year with colorFabb_XT and the finest hotel Birmingham had to offer:

 

TCT 2015 aka the year where we featured XT-CF20, the Stackers and coffee was spilled:

 

TCT 2016 aka the year with the race car and we introduced nGen_FLEX:

 

TCT 2017 aka the year when we announced nGen_LUX:

 

During the week of the TCT Show in 2018 we offer a 15% discount on all our stocked spools of filaments in our webshop. Use coupon code TCT2018 in our webshop to get the discount immediately:

Discount does not apply for Color on Demand, samples, printers, services or parts – only the spools of filaments that are normally offered as being in stock. Not in stock and being stocked again soon? No worries, you will get the discount.