EXBuild Blog

Founded in 1973, Guhring UK — the Birmingham-based subsidiary of the Guhring Group — manufactures precision cutting tools. The company began as a stockholder of the more standardized cutting and milling tools. Today Guhring UK manufactures bespoke cutting and milling tools for some of the world’s largest companies, including BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Airbus, and BAE Systems. Guhring’s expertise in manufacturing carbide and polycrystalline diamond (PCD) cutting tools is world-renowned. Their range of PCD tools are made-to-order to suit customer requirements, and are manufactured by brazing ultra high-hardness industrial-grade diamond cutting tips onto bespoke hardened tool steel bodies.

There are two main drivers of whether or not a metal alloy is printed today: printability and demand. Though there are a wide variety of metal 3D printing processes out there, nearly all rely on metal powders. These materials take two forms in printing: raw 3D printing metal powders, or bound powder 3d printing metal filament. As a result, the metal materials printable today are to a large degree constrained by powder availability and whether or not that powder can be effectively bound. Aluminum, as an example, is notoriously difficult to print well and is as a result relatively uncommon.

While metal 3D printing is not replacing traditional manufacturing methods, it is changing how we think about fabricating metal parts. The basic physical difference in how objects are made with additive produces some major functional differences. The most important of these functional differences is that additive manufacturing can be used to create complex geometries that would be difficult or impossible to achieve with traditional manufacturing methods.

The key to unlocking strength in continuous fiber 3D printing is by understanding where you can leverage strands or panels such that they distribute the loading forces in tension or bending, as we covered in the Physics of 3D Printing. Below, we share a few different methods for identifying and placing fiber within your part to provide strength where you need it.