3D Printed String Vase Shows What's Possible

Cantilevers are the bane of the melted plastic 3D printing world. Often we try to avoid them with creative print alignments, or we compensate with supports. However, [3DPrintBunny] decided to take overhangs to an extreme in the design of their creative 3D printed string vase.

The design is intended to be printed with a larger nozzle, around 0.8mm or so, at 0.6mm layer height. Under these conditions, the printer nozzle fills the gap between the pillars of the vase with a single string of melted filaments. With the right settings, the molten filament stays attached during the bridging operation and creates a thin plastic chain between the pillars. Repeat this operation on the whole pattern and you have a nice string vase.

Surprisingly, [3DPrintBunny] didn't have to do any fancy tricks to achieve this. The stock slicer settings did the job well, and it reports that the model should print on most FDM printers. For her own examples, she printed in a special two-tone silver/bronze PLA filament.

It reminds us of efforts to create synthetic hair-like fibers by leveraging rope in 3D printers. Video after the break.

I really like thick strings, so I decided to design a string vase for my 0.8mm nozzle, printed at 0.6mm.

Print in action here, photos in the comments