Have you ever wanted to print wood on
your 3d printer? I mean actual wood that
you can sand and you can stain. I'll show
you how
on today's Filament Friday. This week's
Filament Friday is brought to you by
these patreon supporters.
I'm gonna be using this hatchbox PLA
wood filament. Now they didn't send me
this. This isn't a sponsored video. This
is my preference for printing wood.
Here's a range of filaments that I've
used.  Filamentive at the top. I've printed
with this. It's a little bit rough. You
have to use a bigger nozzle and such, but
it does print pretty decent.  Esun at the
bottom is more of a wood color it's not
really wood.
It prints smooth but you can't really sand it or stain it. Hatchbox is a
compromise between the two. It's smooth
and you can actually stain it and sand
it. And it prints really well on a
standard nozzle.
Here's a few examples. This shelf I made
out of wood filament many many videos
ago and these knobs that are on all my
cabinets in my shop. These are actually
two color. It's wood knob with a glowing
a dark filament insert. The print quality
with the wood is not quite as good as
pure PLA but then you can sand it and
stain it or paint it so who really cares.
And I love the fact that I can use wood
for like brackets if I'm making
something out of wood. I don't have to use little
plastic black brackets. I can actually
make them in wood and then stain the
whole thing. So they all look the same.
It's really a cool option. The first
print I'm gonna do with the hatch box
PLA wood is my CHEP cube. I'm gonna slice
it here in Cura 4.0 using my magic profiles.
Here I'm gonna use the magic 0.2 profile
I share all these in the description
below. 0.2 layer height 25%
infill and 50 millimeters per second. So
we'll slice this up and then we'll see
how it turns out when I print it on the
Ender 3. And here's the result. If you
look close it's a little bit grainy. It's
got a little bit of rough spots. It's
even got some splitting in it like you
would get in wood. The top of it's a
little bit rougher, but it's kind of what
you'd expect for a wood print. That
roughness can easily be sanded out
because you're sanding wood and it feels
just like wood as you're sanding it. Now
you can't really use a belt sander or
nothing because its still got plastic in
it. It'll get too hot and the plastic will
soften. But sanding by hand there's no
problem. I can get every corner and round
it up and then when it's done it looks
like it's got sawdust in it. So all I've got
to do is blow on it and the sawdust goes
away. And I have this wood block leftover.
Doesn't this look like a wood block that
was carved? But it's not, it's actually a
wood block that was 3d printed on a
printer and then sanded with actual
sandpaper. I love the way this looks. And
as far as printing I don't recommend you
mounted up here if you have it Ender 3
 or any printer like this. Mount
your spool close to the extruder so it
goes in straight. I print on the Bowden
tube and with a stock nozzle I've had no
issues. This stuff prints beautifully
with that set up and it doesn't tear
everything up. Now what about printing
detail? Well it's wood so you
gotta print of baby groot right? So I
found this smiling baby Groot on
Thingiverse by using Raxian. So I
imported that in to Cura 4.0 and I
downsized it to 50% of its original size
and then i'm going to use my magic 0.12
profile for Cura. So it's a 0.12
layer height 25% infill, 50 millimeters per
second just like before.  I could print
this a little bit slower but I wanted to
see how it would do at this standard
speed. And once I sliced it, it said
it would take about 3 hours to print so
realistically about 4 hours to print
this thing and I will see how it turns
out.
And here's the results. It's not a
perfect print by any means. It's got a
few little zits on its arms and legs but
overall I think this is a pretty good
print especially for actual wood print. I
may up size it or print a little slower
in the future but I like how this turned
out. Some people recommend you up size
your nozzle to 0.5 or 0.6 and then use
a hardened nozzle. That may be
true if you use Filamentive or
filaments similar to this that's really
rough, but that's what I love about the
hatchbox. It's so smooth I can print it
on a standard machine with standard
Bowden tube, brass 0.4 nozzle, I get
great results and I don't see any damage
And I mentioned that you could stain it
or paint it, well here's an example. I
like using Minwax water-based stain.
This is a pecan color. All you do is you
rub it on and then wipe off the excess. The cube on the right has one coat of the
stain. The one on the left
is fresh off the printer. If I want it
darker I just add another layer. The wood
that's in the 3d print actually absorbs
the stain the way regular wood does.
If you only want a mild color change you
can do that right on the 3d printer.
Here's a block that I printed at 180
degrees C for the lower third, 200
degrees C for the middle and 220 degrees
on top. You can see that the top higher
temperature is lighter than the cooler
180 degrees C on the bottom. If you
talk to anybody that does woodworking
they'll have certain woods that they
like to work with. Some like maple, some
like pine, some like oak, it depends on
the project but they still have certain
woods that they like to work with. Hatchbox
is the wood filament that I prefer
to work with. Again this filament was not
donated to the channel. This isn't a
sponsor in any way shape or form. I've
just done a lot of wood printing and
this is the filament that I recommend
you start with and then work from there.
Now I will put a link to this in this
description below. Its an affiliate link. It
does help the channel if you buy through
that but the main thing I want you to do
is have fun printing with wood. So that's
it for this week. If you like what I'm
doing here maybe check out some of those
videos that are popping up. If you want
to help support the channel patreon or
the affiliate links are a great way to
do that. And if nothing else click on the
CHEP Logo and subscribe. I'll see you
next time right here at Filament Friday
