We are excited to announce Faberdashery filament is available to buy at the iMakr store in London. This is pretty big for us, as it is the first time we have put our filament into a physical retail space.

The store is located in central London and occupys 2,500 square feet across two floors making it the largest 3D print store in the world. Last night Faberdashery was at the grand opening. It was great to feel the buzz and excitement in the store as people took in the variety of printers, materials and accessories on offer.

We are excited by the chance to give greater accessibility to our filament. So come and see touch and smell Faberdashery at the store!

MakieLab, the have just launched their iPad app. The pioneering London-based doll and games company, utilises 3D printing technology to offer customisable action dolls. Now their ‘Makies Doll Factory’ app allows you to create you own unique 3D printed figure from the comfort of your iPad. As you’d expect from MakieLab, it’s beautifully simple with great attention to detail plus a few quirky characteristics.

The launch of this app is another landmark in the trend towards accessible 3D content creation. As 3D printing technology becomes more pervasive, we’re seeing the emergence of tools that engage with people in a far more immersive way. The new genre of easy to use, low cost (/ free) 3D content creation tools opens 3D printing technology to a wider audience of enthusiastic non-specialists.

MakieLabs having been pushing other boundaries this month, adding three new flesh colours to the SLS Nylon dolls. Makies have also become the first ever 3D printed toys to be toy certified. That’s pretty big! It’s been a great start to the year for 3D printing

Here’s a beautiful story.

Simon and Steph got married this summer. They wanted to make their wedding favours really personal to them. What better way to do this than by 3D printing them!

We’ll let them explain it in their own words:

We have been playing with the printers for around a year and were impressed with the capability and versatility of them. When we were looking into the cost of favour boxes they turned out to be pretty expensive and with the cost of everything else we decided to try and make our own. We found the design of the box on Thingiverse and sweets to go inside that we had personalised with our names and dates of the wedding to make them unique. Our past experiences with white had either come out slightly see-through or with a yellowy tinge. The Faberdashery Arctic White seemed like a perfect option. It was completely pure and exactly what we wanted-matching perfectly with the brilliant white decor. At the wedding lots of the guest said they were amazing and asked where we had got the boxes from – they were completely in awe when we said we had made them! We would just like to thank you for allowing us to have this extra wow factor on our special day!

Simon and Steph

As you can see, the results were stunning. Thanks Simon and Steph for sharing your story with us.

London Design week is a fantastic spectacle of fashion, architecture, interiors and products; and it was only correct that 3D printing should feature in the mix. Last weekend marked the end of London Design Week. We headed over to Earl’s Court to catch the final day of 100% Design and help out with the RSA’s Great Recovery stand.

Jim with his Emaker Huxley at RSA’s stand for 100% Design

The Great Recovery is all about challenging the lifecycle of products and designing for a circular-economy model. In addition there were talks from Daniel Charny, the curator of the V&A’s Power of Making exhibition, and James Carrigan, co-Founder and Creative Director of Sugru. They were talking about Fixperts.org, a project looking at how using design thinking can help fix everyday problems. Of course these projects are a great fit with the 3D printing and maker movement.

Talks included James Carrigan and Daniel Charny introducing their Fixperts project

The RSA’s stand was a bold statement amongst the slick and minimalist displays. Shelves filled broken electrical items surrounded volunteers busily fixing things. Jim was there with his Emaker Huxley printing out spare parts and replacements in Faberdashery neon colours. The printer was a real crowd pleaser with reactions ranging from sage head nodding to pure open-mouthed amazement.

The printer drew a lot of interest

It was great to see the buzz and excitement generated by the printer. When you are so deeply immersed in the world of 3D printing it is easy to forget that feeling of amazement on seeing your first print. Despite the explosion of the home 3D printing market and the attention it gets in the press it is still only small (but fabulous) proportion of people with machines. It was inspiring just to experience the delight on people’s faces as they watched a product emerge before their eyes. As one amazed onlooker said: “It’s alchemy I tell you!” Alchemy, sorcery, magic, whatever you want to call it. It’s here. We call it fabbing. 

The KamerMaker is the world’s first movable 3D print pavillion. Capable of 3D printing entire rooms from PLA, this is one of the biggest printers around. It has an epic build size of 2x2x3.5m! The project is a collaboration between DUS architects and Ultimaker Ltd and is purposely open source. From 2013 onwards, the KamerMaker will travel to different locations in the Netherlands and beyond.

We were lucky enough to be at the launch party in Amsterdam last weekend. The event had a real block party feel with great community interaction. We got a fantastic view from inside of the machine. Yes, that’s right, you can climb inside it! Printing this big is no easy task. Although the machine is driven essentially by standard Ultimaker electronics with the beating heart of an Arduino (plus some industrial stepper drivers) feeding the plastic in requires some innovative solutions. A mini-extruder (from xtrution.com) feeds the KamerMaker with molten plastic. Thermoplastic granules are fed in the top, melted and extruded along a monstrous ‘bowden’ tube to the print head. The tube is heated PTFE with steel braiding. It is an elegant solution with pretty awesome results. The design of the machine is really beautiful, with mirrored, chameleon stainless steel finish, fitting inside a standard shipping container.

It was really inspiring to see a concept put into action. Big dreams are great. Making them a reality is even better. Already we are seeing huge potential for the KamerMaker. We would love to know your thoughts. If you could print this big, what would you print?

To see more images of the mighty KamerMaker take a look at our Flickr stream.

Something we love about PLA for 3d printing, is its translucency. PLA pure and natural is semi-transparent, with a gorgeous crystalline effect. It produces stunning 3d prints that other materials can’t achieve. Here are some shining examples!

Sim City Capitol Ambient Light model by TopperDEL

A project that came onto our radar recently is the Sim City Capitol Ambient Light model by TopperDEL which takes the Capitol Building on Thingiverse from Skimbal’s Sim City 2000 Tabletop Play Set and turns it into a stunning colour-shifting tabletop lamp. TopperDEL used colour changing LEDs to create ambient light change effects and printed the model in Faberdashery Crystal Clear PLA. The outcome is a real design centrepiece. He’s included detailed instructions on how he printed his Capitol Building, focussing especially on the challenge of hollow printing. TopperDEL says he has plans to make more LED lamps. We’ll be watching out with excitement for his next cool idea.

Grayscale Dualstrusion Poster by tbuser

The other fantastic project that plays with transparent qualities is the Grayscale Dualstrusion Poster by Thingiverse superstar tbuser. His design experiments with the variation in transparency according to print thickness. He created this iconic poster through simple layering. Genius!

3D printing Surface Treatments – PLA iPhone Case by norcalbarney

Of course we couldn’t blog about PLA translucency experiments without mentioning norcalbarney‘s magnificent iphone cases. What can we say? Exceptional use of the Hilbert Curve!

At Faberdashery we’ve just launched our new and improved Jade Green. This completes our current collection of translucent PLA colours. So whether you’re thinking light-up bunnies, awesome self-portraits, mojioto green shot glasses or just some simple jewellery then reach for the translucents.

It’s Friday, and we wanted to share a little inspiration with you. Here’s some of the cool stuff people have been doing with Faberdashery filament this week ~

Angry Birds by MotoBarsteward.

Parametric Rings by Yuleblinker.

Blockbot by Richard Gain and a great little video to go with it.

Happy Friday all!

It’s going to have to be RepRap. It was inspired by the mutualist symbiosis between the flowers and insects. To see me rabbiting on about this nonsense look at this video for example.

My approach is to sit and stare at the ceiling, and my favourite tools are a pencil and piece of paper.

I would not say, as I make it a principle not to comment publically on what other makers do.  Because I created RepRap my comments would carry far more weight than they are worth. (Though I was very proud when my daughter Sally finished building her first RepRap machine the other day.)

I think the widespread uptake of home genetic engineering. Incredibly powerful, incredibly interesting, and maybe incredibly dangerous. [ed. Checkout BioCurious and this Economist article for starters].

From the first shot glass we made using the very first RepRap machine (currently on display in the V&A) I had a dram of Laphroaig, of which I am rather fond.

Cheers!

Photo credit: Adrian Bowyer.

Wow! What a first couple of months it’s been! We’ve shipped filament across the world- from Sydney to Sweden, from New York to the Netherlands, our PLA has travelled to almost every continent. Our materials have been spotted in some awesome places like the Brighton Maker Faire; at the V&A Museum’s new show ‘The Power of Making‘; The DML at Bath’s Innovation Centre and various RepRap meet-ups.

We’ve been amazed by the response from the community and would like to say a massive Thanks! We love the fantastic stuff that you’ve been printing with Faberdashery PLA. Check out the Cups from NYC Designer, RichRap’s Traditional Fan and Heart Box, Smartroad’s fab Dyson hack and Pia Tubert’s elegant pliers. Many thanks to the blogs that also featured us, including Fabbaloo, SolidSmack, Ponoko and others.

Finally, we have had a new addition to the Faberdashery family – Baby Rose. She is bringing a lot of joy to the Faberdashery household – as well as some sleepless nights .

So thanks all for your support and fabbing love! We’re currently working on extending our range. Watch this space for more news.

Photo credit: RichRap.

Hello and welcome to our new site! It is a great feeling to be opening the doors to Faberdashery for the very first time. Here at Faberdashery we are selling a fabulous range of PLA filament for desktop 3D printing. Our filament comes in both 1.75mm and 3mm diameter, in a glorious rainbow range of colours. It has taken some testing and tweaking to get our filament just the way we wanted it – superb roundness, vibrant colouring and of course, great printability. So we are super excited to be releasing it to all you Thingsmiths out there, and even more excited to see what you will do with it!

What’s more, we are selling print filament by the meter! Buy as much – or as little – as you want. Gone are the days of reams of print material left languishing by your printer because you were itching to try the latest filament. Gone are the times when you had to buy an enormous ream of one colour just for a single object. Now you can buy a rainbow selection of print filament safe in the knowledge you only have as much as you need and that you won’t be breaking the bank. Go and try it out now folks and let us know what you think in the comments.