3D Printing. What’s all the hype about?

The Tech.

3D printers build a model layer by layer. Any 3D model can be sliced like a cucumber. The printer creates a solid layer one on top of another till a model - or in this analogy, a cucumber - appears.

Fusion deposit machines (FDM) use spools of wire like thermo-plastic, heating it to a paste at the extruder and depositing it on a surface (print bed). Electric step-motors move the extruder around, usually using belts and runners. PLA, ABS, PET even PVA are all polymers which FDM machines can use. PLA plastic has the added advantage of being a bioplastic usually made from cornstarch, it is compostable at industrial facilities and has a low toxicity profile.

Stereolithography (SLA) printers often have a vat of UV sensitive resin which a UV image is projected on - one layer at a time. These machines allow us to print highly detailed models quickly. However, the print beds are small and the resin is both costly and often a hazardous material to work with.

Generally, a printer’s resolution, or print quality, is limited by the layer height of the printer. Our FDM machines have a height of 0.1mm and our SLA machines have a layer height of 0.05mm. Overhangs in models are secured to the build plate with removable structures call support.

3D printers now come in a vast range of types. Some use wet cerment, others using cake icing, some use a welder as a hotend and metal as material. They all take a long time to print anything though…

The Potential.

The technologies been around since at least the 1980’s. The limitations been machine and material cost and human imagination. In the last decade 3D printers have become affordable. Items you’d get made using plastic injection moulding can now be produced within a day or so using a FDM machine. The old-fashioned injects moulds would cost tens of thousands and take weeks to make. Now, once you have the digital model, you can have an item in your hand in a matter of hours.

Basically, it puts prototyping in the hands of everyone. Your average Joe, Joan, or Jesse can think something tangible up and hold it in their hands for tens, not thousands of pounds. In practice it's not quite that simple. 3D models need to be designed, sourced, and formatted. Machines break, prints fail, real world objects present real world design problems. But that’s where small scale producers like Chapel Prints come in!

From masks to protect against Covid-19, to screw-drivers for the space station, whether is braille raised surface maps or affordable prosthetic limbs the potential of 3D printing is knocking on the door. Instantly sharable designs and 3D printings inately adaptable application means this method of making will play a growing role in education, utility, and art.

The recent rise in assessable scanning tools to digitise real world objects, cements this discipline as the new big player in the word of informational technology.

We have several structured light scanners for gathering our data. We also work with models produced through photogrammetry (digital photography), smartphone scanners, Lidar, CT and X-Ray, crystallography, as well as original 2D and 3D design.

What can we do?

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We have a formal background in the natural sciences, a strong interest in ecology and wildlife. we’ve earnt a practical knowledge of woodwork, pottery, and electronics. And naturally, we have an overbearing familiarity with all things tied to 3D printing.

A Scottish potter wanted a positive mould of a topographical map of Ulva off Mull; we could design a cut-out print suited for the job. 

When Asked if we could supply replica skulls for a local zoo to be exhibited alongside the Natural History Museum's Photographer of the Year, we knew what species would catch the imagination and did it within a 2 week turn around.

A whiskey distillery in Fife wanted a 250 item custom order of maps; we could annotate them to highlight key fields that supply their malt.

Approach with a limited grant we could scan-in, render, print, and finish a series of Anglo-Saxon grave goods for a school workshop. 

We are proud generalists, with the skills to help you with your commission or small scale R&D project.