So far over the corse of Filament Fridays, we’ve talked about filaments with better sustainability, different textures, and even flexibility. This week’s selection is all about looks. Silk Like from Beaver3D produces prints with such a high luster it will surely turn the heads of anyone you show them to.
Beaver3D was a company I was unaware of until I stopped by the Maker Box booth recently at the Midwest RepRap Fest (MRRF). Maker Box is a great way to get started in dabbling with cool alternative filaments. Each month, Maker Box will send you a box with 4 filament samples in your desired filament size from different great manufacturers. Looking around some of the samples from past boxes in their booth, the Silk Like instantly caught my eye and I purchased a sample from them to try out.
Since Silk Like is based on biopolymers like PLA, printing with the Silk Like was easy. I only needed some small modifications to my PLA profile, based on the recommendations on Beaver3D’s product site, to get things up and running. My print turned out incredible, with almost no issues at all. My only flaw was some minor top fill gaps that I’m not used to seeing while printing on the Prusa I3 Mk2 that I used to create this print.
Silk Like is an appropriate name for this filament, as it shines with the same type of iridescence as a piece of silk cloth. I have a stack of the prints I have been including in Filament Friday at my hackerspace (Ocean State Maker Mill) and in that stack sits a half-finished Silk Like model from a failed print attempt (my fault for the fail, not the filament’s). Fellow members keep bringing it over to me and asking “What filament is this, it looks incredible.” This is the kind of reaction you want out of show/demo prints.
While I only started with a short sample of this filament, I’m looking forward to getting a full spool of Silk Like. It’s impressive to anyone who sees it and will be great for printing items to show off 3D printing in my upcoming workshops. My wife has also decided her next phone case will be printed from it — that’s a reason to get more right there!
Check back every Friday for weekly reviews on 3D printing filament.
If you have a filament you would like us to try out or are a producer of filament, email me at mstultz@makermedia.com and we will try to make it an upcoming installment of Filament Friday!
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