WHAT IS 3D PRINTING?

3D printing is a style of manufacturing technique known as an additive, as opposed to subtractive, process (even automated or robotized ones) that work by removing material. Subtractive techniques all have a certain number of limitations inherent in the methods of production. Indeed, to produce the final object, you need to start with a block of material, which causes waste and limits formal complexity.

Let’s take, for example, the traditional way of manufacturing a wooden chair leg: a tree is cut down, the bark and branches are removed, and it is cut into boards. The boards, once dried, are planed, sawed, machined, and sanded. To make the same leg in plastic, you have to create a mold made from a block of metal, which the melted plastic will be injected into using a gigantic press.

Once cooled, the chair leg is ejected from the mold and deburred. Its injection “sprue,” a sort of umbilical cord for the object, also needs to be removed. In order to be manufactured with this process, the leg of the chair needs to have a shape that meets the criteria of clearance angle, uniform thickness of the walls, and the other constraints of plastic injection molding.

All of these operations impose limits for designers when they are designing pieces. These manufacturing constraints are the reason why so many objects look and feel the same. For a designer, a new production technique, often means new aesthetic possibilities.

3D printing is a process that allows objects to be directly manufactured by depositing layers of material on top of one another. The layers of material deposited are usually less than a millimeter thick, or even less than a tenth of a millimeter with some technologies. There is a different technology that corresponds to each material. These techniques allow greater creative freedom and require fewer tools to create a prototype. The manufacturing time and cost for limited editions, or even single pieces, can also be reduced. What’s more, the additive process makes it possible to manufacture objects comprising several pieces that are articulated in relation to each other in a single operation: in other words, you can pop a toy car out of the 3D printer, and it will be ready to roll with no assembly required!

Those are the principles and the advantages. Now let’s look at the practice!

Next page:
Exhibition FABLAB / FABSHOP at pavillon de l’Arsenal (march 2014)
Source: le FabShop
© Samuel N. Bernier