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Archive: https://archive.today/8VWcp

From the post:

>A friend of mine and I both have a similar project in mind, the manufacture of custom footwear with our hackerspace’s shiny new multi-material 3D printer. It seems like a match made in heaven, a machine that can seamlessly integrate components made with widely differing materials into a complex three-dimensional structure. As is so often the case though, there are limits to what can be done with the tool in hand, and here I’ve met one of them. I can’t get a good range of footwear for my significantly oversized feet, and I want a set of extra grippy soles for a particular sporting application. For that the best material is a rubber, yet the types of rubber that are best for the job can unfortunately not be 3D printed. In understanding why that is the case I’ve followed a fascinating path which has taught me stuff about 3D printing that I certainly didn’t know.

Archive: https://archive.today/8VWcp From the post: >>A friend of mine and I both have a similar project in mind, the manufacture of custom footwear with our hackerspace’s shiny new multi-material 3D printer. It seems like a match made in heaven, a machine that can seamlessly integrate components made with widely differing materials into a complex three-dimensional structure. As is so often the case though, there are limits to what can be done with the tool in hand, and here I’ve met one of them. I can’t get a good range of footwear for my significantly oversized feet, and I want a set of extra grippy soles for a particular sporting application. For that the best material is a rubber, yet the types of rubber that are best for the job can unfortunately not be 3D printed. In understanding why that is the case I’ve followed a fascinating path which has taught me stuff about 3D printing that I certainly didn’t know.
[–] • 1 pt

I don't know much about raw rubber or the mixing/milling processes, but the refined components that are used in a certain industry would not be suitable for 3D printing, and even if it were.. the vulcanization process needs to occur after the product has been constructed.

Think of it like pottery.. you shape clay into the desired form and then its fired in an oven to give it rigidity/durability. Its essentially the same thing except rubber is (obviously) more plyable even after hardening.

[–] • 0 pt

Yeah, it should be pretty obvious to anyone that understands how rubber is made to realize that it does not lend to 3d-printing. I posted this mostly because of that. Not everything can be printed (at least not yet) and rubber is a very good example of something that would be very complicated and probably not worth it to print, at least for now.

[–] • 1 pt

Because it goes through a chemical and traditional heating process, it has a curing time then it's hard. I'm not an expert but it's about the heating/cooling process. I'm amazed they can do aluminum.