Form Futura Thibra3D Skulpt printer filament
As a modeller of 3D critters and props, I’ve had my eye on filaments to print with that would allow for some post-processing, be it fixing up visible layers, to add/remove details post-print or to give a more sculptural treatment overall.
In general, the idea of a sculptable filament appeals to me because it allows for a bit of tangible editing to make a print special. You might start off with something basic and build on top of it, or you might just want to make some final refinements that your printer isn’t up to handling.
For whatever reasons, there was a fairly well known Kickstarted clay/wax-based filament that came up in 2015, but as of this writing, it still hasn’t seen mass production. This particular filament piqued my interest, but I wasn’t prepared to invest at the time and looking back at the way it’s been handled since, I am somewhat glad I dodged that bullet.
The fact remains, though, that the market needs a sculptable filament. So when I saw this new product from FormFutura, I was very curious. When Filaments.ca announced they’d be picking some up, I jumped at the chance to try some.
Today, I want to go over its properties, what I like, what I don’t like and whether it measures up to expectations.
From FormFutura’s MSDS sheet, the material is some sort of plastic blend containing 2-Oxepanone homopolymer (also known as Polycaprolactone (PCL). PCL is commonly used as part of many thermoplastics, including Worbla, Friendly Plastic, etc. It’s also one of the more commonly known materials used by consumer-grade 3D pens. It’s otherwise somewhat unclear to me what the PCL is blended with, although I will say that the material does seem a bit more rigid compared to straight PCL.Â
The material requires temps from 190-220C to print and it’s recommended that initial bed temperature start at 60C, with 45C for the rest of the print.Â
Unheated filament feels relatively supple, compared to PLA or ABS. Once heated, the material retains a slightly stretchy feel to it, although extended stretching will cause the filament to break.
It sticks well to masking tape on a build surface. I have yet to test other finishes.
This is a tortoise I modeled some years ago using ZBrush. I originally uploaded it to Shapeways, but never got around to ordering a print of it from them. Instead, I have since been using it as a testing print across the two printers and filaments that I’ve got.Â
In this particular case, I have printed it at 0.2mm layer height, with a 0.4mm nozzle. It’s got 1.2mm walls with 15% infill.Â
Initial impressions upon print completion:Â Â
- The extra flow allowed for consistency over most of the print until the top of the shell, which often causes speed & curve-related under-extrusion and gaps.Â
- Due to the stretchiness, it was somewhat difficult to remove the support material. In this particular case, I printed with a raft and tree-support material, so as to ensure bed adhesion as well as conserve filament used on support material. With PLA and the same settings, this would normally just snap off easily)
- As is common with bottom layers butting up against supports, the overhang surface was somewhat messy.
- Otherwise overall, the print emerged with no blobs or stringing. For a 0.2mm print, the layers were relatively tight and not very noticeable from a distance.
The TL;DR of it is that I found the material to be easily heated and reheated. I used a heat-gun, but you could just as easily use a hairdryer or very hot water. Using heat-resistant sculpting tools, I was able to model in refinements that my printer had missed at this scale. It took me roughly an hour to go from fresh print to sculpted tortoise and most of that was spent getting to know just how much heat and pressure was needed (and when).
- Ability to rework. Whether you’re just looking to add a final touch, mitigate lower print quality issues or to add whole sculptural elements to a base print, this is the chief reason to pick up this material.
- Good print quality. Surface quality is generally good, with minimal layer appearance.
- Final reworked print structurally strong, despite wall thickness, infill, and significant modifications to the shell integrity (keep in mind this is also dependent upon your settings and the degree to which the model has been modified).Â
- Potentially completely reusable, since the material is easily melted down. While it would likely take a shredder and filament extruder to make recycled filament from this material, I suspect you could still use your scraps as a substitute for Friendly Plastic or Worbla Deco Art.Â
- It’s easy to go overboard with heat while reworking this material. I used a heatgun at 300C and found I only needed a few seconds of heat contact for the material to become workable. Any more and it’s easy to end up with an unfixable floppy mess.Â
- Not sure how well it differs and/or measures up against other PCL filaments, and whether other PCL filaments are similarly sculptable.
- A bit tougher to remove support material compared to PLA/ABS, sometimes leaving behind scraps of filament that need to be removed or smoothed down.
- Interesting to try at least once. Will probably use this spool up, but as yet unsure whether it’s a rebuy for me. I feel like testing some other PCL filaments is something I should get around to doing.
- If you intend to make refinements after printing, you should adjust your file’s wall thickness accordingly. This is somewhat dependent upon how much reworking you intend to do as well as how much hollow space there is. Some infill is necessary, but I wouldn’t recommend anything higher than say... 20-25%, just because it’s still necessary to have a hollow that would allow you to compress the air inside, rather than pushing around solid plastic that may not compress easily.
- The final product, post-reworking, is rigid and waxy when cool. It’s also pretty strong, although I suspect still somewhat soft when cold, so you should expect scratches and dents if the final product sees a lot of wear & tear.
- Probably not for large applications unless you don’t mind working with premium materials at large scale to begin with.
- Probably not a great candidate for finished work that requires heat-fastness and durability. It’s a pretty soft material. Might be a good candidate as a sculpted master to mold and cast in resin.
- Definitely isn’t a clay filament - Has the rigidity of a slip-cast plastic toy with a waxy surface feel. May or may not be a good candidate for the lost-wax process.
- Somewhat pricy. I paid CA$54.95+13% sales tax for 750g at Filaments.ca . This comes out to about CA$0.073/g, whereas an economy PLA could come out to as low as CA$0.015/g. I guess it really depends on the purpose for your print, what other materials you are prepared to use to help refine it (be it primer, sanding, heat), what kind of time you have and what proficiency you have in terms of sculpting.
