Stainless steel componentry

Stainless steel 17-4PH linear guiderail with gearing

​At Laws Plus our Markforged Metal X 3D printer is able to print stainless steel componentry. The process of commercial and industrial grade 3D printing is known as additive manufacturing.

To make the component pictured above the following process is applied:

​Once we received a STL file from our client, the file was loaded into our Markforged Eiger software and prepared for printing. We then loaded the stainless steel 17-4PH filament into the machine and began printing.

To make the operations of our machinery efficient, we batch printed multiple stainless steel components at the same time. 

The initial print product is stainless steel powder suspended in a wax substrate which results in the item being larger than the finished product will be. The next step will be washed in a solution to remove excess wax before the part is sintered. The final component will then be smaller than it currently is, look like regular stainless steel and ready for use.

Prior to the availability of additive manufacturing, a component like this would have had to be made from two machine parts and one extruded part assembled together. This traditional manufacturing approach would be quite labour intensive, resulting in a slower turn around for the client.