3D Printing

Free Form 3D Metal Printer Yields Giant 3D Printed Bench

If you had a robot arm capable of 3D printing long strands of metal, what’s the first thing you would make? (That’s a serious question that you can answer in the comments below.) It looks like Joris Laarman, co-developer of the MX3D-Metal 3D printing technique, would first make some artsy furniture.

3D printed dragon bench among other works

We first covered Laarman’s 3D printing robotic arm a year ago. News came out in February of this year that his device had since evolved to 3D print in metal. Laarman is no longer spitting out test prints with the MX3D-Metal machine, but fabricating elaborate and beautiful pieces of metal furniture, now on display at the Friedman Benda gallery in New York. Below, you’ll see the exhibition’s centerpiece, the 12 x 8-foot “Dragon Bench”. The piece was designed, according to the gallery’s site, “based on algorithms and non-repetitive parametric modules so the generated forms are unique.”

3D printed dragon bench

Laarman tells Fast Co. Design of the motivation behind launching the show, titled Bits and Crafts: “I wanted to create a large sculptural work in order to show [MX3D-Metal’s] capabilities. The organically shaped mesh creates a nice contour, but is an open construction at the same time.” The artist adds that the best is yet to come, saying of the Dragon Bench that, “It shows what we can do right now.”

3D printed Maker chairs

While the MX3D-Metal process behind the Dragon Bench is impressive, I appreciate Laarman’s table and chairs on exhibit for their look. Assembled from a variety of materials (resin, solid woods, plastics, metals) and made up of different shapes (triangular, hexagonal, figurative, pixilated), the Maker chair series uses what will be an open source design that Laarman plans to release to the public soon. 3D printer owners will be able to download the files for the chairs, print and assemble them piece by piece for less than $50. The Diamond Table is similarly constructed from individual segments of 3D printed polyurethane.

3D printed diamond table

Sometimes at 3DPI, people send us samples of 3D printed stuff, just in case it inspires us to write about that stuff (Pro Tip: It doesn’t always work!). So, if Laarman wants to send any 3D printed furniture our way, we’d definitely give it a good sit.

Source: Fast Co. Design