I recently designed some parts that need to be structurally stronger than any of the plastic components that I have designed in the past. I set out to find something, I was hoping for a metal filament that I would be able to print with my FDM printer.

I was not disappointed. I discovered BASF’s Ultrafuse metal filament, which is PLA infused with metal. It’s not cheap, so I’ll be doing quite a bit of investigation before I start using any of it. It also requires post-processing to remove the plastic from the metal and to sinter the metal together afterwards. I also need to plan for 20-25% shrinkage. All in all, this should be an interesting experiment.