New York-headquartered 3D printing marketplace and service bureau Shapeways has entered into an agreement with leading material provider Henkel. Working with the Loctite materials brand, the partners aim to expand Henkel’s material provisions for large-scale additive manufacturing. Under the ‘Loctite powered by Shapeways’ program, the partners are also offering customers on demand 3D printing services with Loctite materials.
Philipp Loosen, Head of 3D Printing at Henkel, comments, “We are excited about the collaboration with Shapeways as a leading technology platform for customized 3D printing solutions.”
One of the areas identified for particular focus by Loosen is “the large-scale 3D printing of customized Loctite parts.” In addition, he states:
“Based on the partnership, we will launch a digital platform leveraging novel opportunities to its global customers for Loctite solutions in 3D printing through Shapeways’ existing platform integration.”
Loctite in 3D printing
Primarily and adhesives brand, in recent years Loctite has launched a range of bonding agents specifically for use with 3D printed parts. In addition to these adhesives, the company has released its own coatings and post-processing equipment for photopolymerization technologies.
Part of the wider Henkel family, Loctite has access to leading materials development expertise, and how now applied this to the development of a new range of resins.
An on demand production partnership
In this new partnership, Shapeways will leverage its proprietary technology and 3D production expertise to make new Loctite 3D printing materials more accessible to customers. According to Shapeways CEO Greg Kress, this includes providing “a B2B manufacturing solution to further enable Henkel to scale the accessibility of its 3D printing materials to a wider global customer base.”
At present, on demand 3D printing services for Loctite materials have been introduced through the Loctite powered by Shapeways program in the form a 3D Printing Sales Demo Kit, giving customers access to samples of the company’s latest 3D materials. The full package currently comprises the following:
– Loctite 3860 High Temp Exhaust Manifold
– Loctite 3870 High Impact Bearing Cover
– Loctite SI 5015 Elastomeric Medium Hard Clear Left Grip
– Loctite 3843 Tough HDT80 Black Puck Adapter
– Loctite 3172 Tough High Impact Gray Robot Bracket
Each of the featured objects are made from Loctite Production Resins, though the company also offers a Prototype Resin range including semi rigid, high accuracy, ultra clear and elastomeric formulations.
Availability of Loctite powered by Shapeways
The ‘Loctite powered by Shapeways’ program will be introduced to visitors of Formnext 2019. From November 19 to 22, Henkel will be presenting further details at booth C42 in hall 12.1.
Concluding comment on the partnership, Kress says, “Our goal at Shapeways is to simplify product creation by empowering businesses to bring innovative ideas to life, from design through production and scale.”
“Henkel is experiencing incredible continuous growth and provides accessibility to a wide variety of sectors, just one of the many reasons we’re excited to partner with them.”
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Featured image shows the Loctite powered by Shapeways logo. Image via Loctite and Shapeways
