7 years later…

This month it is exactly 7 years ago that colorFabb saw the light of day. It looked a little bit like this…

Basically a garage with an office, first production of our spools and our first show: RapidPro

 

Well, 7 years later…

 

In February 2013 we launched our first products at the RapidPro trade show here in the Netherlands. We had about 20 colors PLA/PHA and only 2.85mm filament. It was still in the early days when there were only a few of us and we constantly had to explain: “No, we are not selling the printers, we make the filament.” (Disclaimer: these days we do sell printers!)

One of our first tweets when we had 10 followers or so.

A lot happened in the past seven years. We basically started in a garage booth with an idea and a lot of ambition. The idea is still the same: to bring the best possible filament to the market and make sure we meet the need of our customers. The ambition has only grown over the past years. The only thing we left behind was the small garage and the little office above. To give you an idea, the image below was our print lab / logistics:

Scale: almost 1:1

In the meantime we moved twice, went from 20 products to 3200+ SKUs (with more to come in 2020), expanded our staff from 3 to almost 30, we became an independent company, ship to 70+ countries worldwide, have the best customers in the world (yes, that’s you) and have been running, working, printing and producing almost 24/7 to make sure you get the best possible filament to print with.

colorFabb has become a company and brand we are very proud of. The biggest shift is the focus on custom colors with our Color on Demand service. We nearly have all the standard RAL classics available (180+ and counting) and have even matched several hundred more colors. But we don’t stop there: Brand new products like LW-PLA and varioShore TPU have been launched, as well as strategic co-operations with brands like Ninjatek, Lubrizol, igus and Iroprint to ensure our customers have the right filament to suit their needs.

You can find more specific recaps per year by clicking on the links below (2013, when we started is sadly lacking, but believe us when we say it was awesome):

 

What’s next?

“What’s past is prologue.” 

~ William Shakespeare

 

And that prologue has been amazing and we will work hard to make the next seven years (and beyond) even better. We thank all our users, customers, partners and staff for making colorFabb the brand and the company it is today!

Get ready for a year full of great new material developments!

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: