Aug 9, 2016 | By Alec
It happens to everyone who ever opens a bottle of wine. Thanks to the prevalence of screw caps nowadays, you find yourself completely destroying those few corks you come across – no matter how careful you are. But now you won’t have to drink the whole bottle anymore, as you can just 3D print a new cork at home. For Dutch filament manufacturers Formfutura has just launched their new EasyCork PLA-based filament, which is absolutely packed with cork fibers to prevent warpage and can be 3D printed on just about every desktop 3D printer out there.
Formfutura is a materials specialist based in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, that is steadily building a reputation for its engineering-grade and consumer filaments. Aside from the usual stuff, they have built up an especially remarkable range of specialty filaments, including a range of EasyWood filaments and the engineering grade TitanX and ApolloX materials, which can boast about unparalleled adhesion qualities.
But among us regular users, FormFutura is especially known for their EasyFil material approach, which ensures that their PLA-based filaments (like their EasyWood range) remain almost completely warp-free when 3D printed. This decreases the need for reprints and allows you to get more value out of your purchase.
EasyCork is also based on their EasyFil PLA compound, making it absolutely warp-free. “EasyCork also has an excellent filament flowing behavior allowing you to 3D print cork-like objects with high printing speeds. Certain geometric shapes can even be 3D printed with extremely high speeds,” the FormFutura team add. The filament can even boast about perfect first- and inter-layer adhesion, while EasyCork features great thermal stability and filament flowing behavior as well.
What’s more, this new filament is extremely lightweight because of its relatively high amount of cork fibers. While most wood-based PLA filaments are almost completely PLA, a massive 30 percent of EasyCork is made from cork fibers. “This means that one kilogram of EasyCork contains 300 gram of lightweight cork fibers. These lightweight cork fibers make that EasyCork has an incredible high volumetric filling,” they say.
This means that any object 3D printed in EasyCork not only has all the aesthetics of cork (including its smell), but also has its excellent lightweight and impact resistant properties as well. “The natural cork fillers in EasyCork will give your printed object a “living” appearance with very subtle natural linings/shades which can be reinforced by playing around with extrusion temperature variations during your 3D print,” its Dutch developers argue. Available in both natural dark cork and a lighter version, you can now thus even 3D print actual corks at home.
But most importantly, EasyCork can be 3D printed on just about every commonly-used desktop 3D printer – unlike many other ‘specialist’ filaments out there. This is largely made possible by the filament’s excellent roundness and very tight diameter tolerances, making it easily 3D printable on any MakerBot, Ultimaker, Leapfrog, UP! machine out there, and on just about every other desktop 3D printer you can think of – even on any RepRap build. And that accessibility is something the 3D printing community desperately needs from its filament.
Posted in 3D Printing Materials
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