you know, there are some pretty neat choicesfor specialty materials these days - 3dprima’s primaselect wood is one of them, selling for70€ per kilogram. based on pla, but filled with around 35% woodparticles, it doesn’t require any specialty hardware to use and makes for prints thathave a texture much like mdf wood. it’s a bit softer and creamier than thereal thing, but it would fit right in with a woodworking project. as it is filled with natural particles, a0.4mm or larger nozzle is recommended, with that nozzle size i did have single jam inthe middle of a print, which is acceptable for a wood filament.
interestingly, the molten filament and theresidue on the nozzle are incredibly sticky, even when almost cooled down, so i’m thinkingthat might actually be the lignin of the wood melting. it’s also interesting to note that the primaselectwood filament consistently stuck to the printbed perfectly well, with no trace of warping,even when printed at the pla defaults of 210â°c and a 55â° heated bed. a cold bed would probably work just the same. when printing, it does smell like wood dust,and as is typical for particle filaments, performs perfectly on overhangs, but needsquite extreme settings for bridges to come
out right. both the 3dbenchy and the fine details testshowed quite a high tendency of stringing. on the mechanical side, i did manage to breakthe two layer adhesion specimen before even getting them in the test jigs, but even reprintedversions done with higher print temperatures didn’t really improve things. the layer strength tests did show a bit ofrobustness, but still only managed to nudge primaselect wood to total score of 6,5kg,meaning you should really stick to using it for super-light-duty and decorative parts. temperature stability was surprisingly low,with the part practically deforming on its
own under boiling water. so even though the primaselect wood is a materialthat isn’t suitable for load-bearing components, it still brings a very unique look and feelto the table.