Materials
Glow-in-the-Dark Filament: What It Actually Is and How to Print It Well
Glow-in-the-dark filament looks like a novelty item on a spool wall, but there is nothing exotic about the base plastic. In almost every case…
HIPS Filament: What It Actually Is and How to Print and Dissolve It Well
HIPS (high impact polystyrene) gets filed under two very different categories depending on who you ask. Some printers treat it as a standalone material,…
Polypropylene (PP) Filament: What It Actually Is and How to Print It Well
Polypropylene shows up in bottle caps, hinged food containers, car interior trim, and lab equipment for good reason: it shrugs off chemicals, bends thousands…
PVA Filament: What It Actually Is and How to Print It Well
PVA filament is polyvinyl alcohol, a water-soluble polymer used almost exclusively as a support material rather than as a standalone print material. It gets…
Food-Safe 3D Printing Filament: What’s Actually Safe (and What Isn’t)
“Is PLA food safe” and “food safe 3D printing filament” are two different questions that get answered as if they were one, and that…
Silk PLA Filament: What Makes It Shine, and Why It Prints Differently From Regular PLA
Silk PLA is the filament people buy for the surface it leaves behind, not for anything it does structurally. It is still PLA underneath,…
Wood Filament: What It Actually Is and How to Print It Well
Wood filament is PLA with real wood particles mixed in, not a plastic that merely looks like wood. That distinction explains almost everything else…
ASA Print Settings: Nozzle Temp, Bed Temp and Enclosure Needs
ASA print settings for nozzle temp, bed temp, cooling and enclosure use, based on Prusa, Polymaker, Overture and MatterHackers data, plus how ASA’s warping…
Nylon Print Settings: Nozzle Temp, Drying and Bed Adhesion
Nylon print settings for nozzle temp, drying, bed adhesion and enclosure use, covering how much PA6, PA12 and blended nylons like Taulman Bridge disagree…
Engineering Filaments: PC, Nylon and Carbon Fiber Explained
What separates PC, nylon and carbon fiber filaments from PLA and PETG, and what your printer needs to handle this engineering tier.
