Issue 05/2015

Report
(the Netherlands), the webshop went live in March. The first
resellers, thirsty for something new, signed up in April and
by May, the single extrusion line was already at full capacity
– and has been ever since.
In hindsight, 2013 was a pilot year for the new brand,
during which the webshop grew, lessons were learned and
the number of employees doubled to six. That first year,
too, colorFabb attended the 3D Print Show in November in
London where a new grade of wood filament based on the
company’s proprietary PLA/PHA compound was showcased.
Branded as woodFill, the filament is made with actual wood
fibers, giving printed objects the texture and smell of wood
and an old-school DIY look. It was an immediate success,
and colorFabb understood that the future of 3D printing
filaments was in special filaments. “The best way to predict
the future is to invent it”, as Ruud Rouleaux put it.
As colorFabb went from strength to strength, meanwhile
expanding and relocating to the Blue Innovation Center in
Venlo, it also signed a joint development agreement with
Eastman Chemical company, under which the company
would develop filaments based on the co-polyesters made
by the US chemical giant. This resulted, in September 2014,
in the launch of colorFabb XT, made with Eastman Amphora
3D Polymer, a more functional material for desktop 3D
printing.
In the eyes of the 3D printing community, however, color‐
Fabb’s most spectacular product had been released a few
months earlier, in May 2014. Called bronzeFill, it is a PLA/
PHA based composite 3D printing filament with 80 % (by
weight) bronze particles and was launched to great acclaim
at the Fabcon trade fair in Erfurt, Germany.
What sets bronzeFill apart is the fact that objects can be
post-processed – polished, tumbled etc. – to bring out the
true bronze qualities of the material. Appearance, weight
and feel are all that of a real bronze object – at a fraction
of the cost.
As compounding PLA/PHA with specially-sourced bronze
particles requires very specific skills and processes,
colorFabb sought out and partnered with Witcom BV,
a Dutch specialist in engineering plastics compounds
whose expertise has long proven invaluable for colorFabb’s
specialty filaments. The collaboration has yielded an
innovative suite of products for FDM printing, including
bronzeFill.
Since then, colorFabb has further expanded its offerings
to include bambooFill, which is pre-compounded by Willich,
Germany-based bioplastics producer FKuR, and copperFill,
a new metal filament composed of 20 % PLA/PHA material
and 80 % micronized copper particles, that, like bronzeFill,
can be sanded and polished after printing. These were soon
followed by the release of yet another metal-filled PLA/
PHA-based material, called brassFill, the most complex
filament to date in terms of processing and printing.
While these specialty filaments were mainly
decorative in nature, meanwhile, colorFabb
has also delivered on the side of functionality.
Earlier this year, the company released
its XT-CF20 filament, a new product
compounded by Witcom on the basis of
Eastman’s Amphora 3D Polymer with 20 %
carbon fiber, to add stiffness, functionality
and dimensional stability to prints and for construction
parts. As proof of concept, an intern at colorFabb has even
printed bicycle parts with this material.
With in-house bioplastics expertise and all capabilities
under one roof to develop and test materials of every kind
on different brands of 3D printers, colorFabb is fast fulfilling
its mission to bring innovative and unique materials to the
market – and the possibilities for the future are sheer
endless. Moreover, the close cooperation with material
partners FKuR and Eastman, combined with the flexible
and highly dedicated colorFabb team enable colorFabb, to
bring a new product to market sometimes in a matter of
mere weeks.
In fact, at any given time, several materials are in various
stages of testing at colorFabb’s print lab, as colorFabb
continues to innovate with more and more materials.
At Helian Polymers new developments are in the works
regarding bioplastics. More on that in the next issue of this
magazine.
www.colorfabb.com
www.fkur.com
www.witcombv.nl
www.eastman.com/3d
brassFill –
post-processed
and polished
bioplastics MAGAZINE [05/15] Vol. 10 33