3D Printed Wax

Additive manufacturing offers the possibility to 3D print using a wide range of materials from plastic to resin and metal. But what about wax 3D printing? There are actually different ways to print wax.

We are going to tell you about 3D printed wax processes and applications. Here is everything you need to know about wax 3D printing!

How can wax be used for 3D printing?

There are actually different techniques to 3D print wax.

3D printing with wax is used to create a precise 3D mold out of a 3D file thanks to the 3D lost wax casting technique. 3D Lost wax casting (or investment casting) is a production process. The casting process mainly allows to produce customizable jewelry of very high quality and 3D design complexity in various printing materials, such as metals.

3D printing with wax is used to create a precise 3D mold out of a 3D file thanks to the 3D lost wax casting technique.

3D Lost wax casting (or investment casting) is a production process. The cast process mainly allows to produce customizable jewelry of very high quality and 3D design complexity in various printer materials, such as metals.

The idea is to create concept models with 3D modeling and then 3D Print wax patterns of the desired object thanks to a wax 3D printer. Then, by adding a refractory material around this model we obtain a mold. Melting the wax filament inside the mold creates an empty space that is filled with the 3D printers material, molten metal. The only remaining step is to break the mold to obtain the final object. Variable finishing options for this 3D printing technology are then available

In addition to the lost-wax casting process, it is possible to actually 3D print wax. The material often used to print wax is not real natural wax, but it is a wax-like material, the mechanical properties of this material are then similar to wax.

Wax 3D printing is made possible with technologies such as Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology. Using an FDM 3D printer, the 3D printing filament material will allow you to get great wax molds.

What is the 3D Printing Process for Last Wax casting?

In the Additive Manufacturing industry, wax 3D printing is made with multi jet printers like the Projet 3500 CPX HD printer that is used at Sculpteo. Unlike filament printing technique, multi jet modeling process (MJM) looks a lot like ink jet technology. Molten wax filament is deposited by nozzles on an aluminum build platform that moves down, layer by layer. 3D Printers are able to simultaneously 3D print with two wax types:

This support wax enables the creation of almost any form, even the most complex product designs and the most complicated wax patterns.

This whole printing process can print products with an incredibly high resolution of 25 μm (0.025mm) between each layer which allows to create pieces with a virtually unlimited level of detail.

But, other 3D printing processes exist using wax such as DoD or Drop on Demand. During this printing process, the wax is deposited in dots instead of a continuous line as we can see with technologies such as inkjet 3D printing.

What are the properties of 3D Printed Wax?

Wax used for Additive Manufacturing is made of 100% pure castable wax but can have various colours and properties. This will also depend on the 3D printing wax process you will use. Moreover, using wax for casting process will allow you to get really detailed molds for products with an intricate geometry.

How to use 3D Printed Wax?

Wax printing is mainly used to create dental molds and 3D printing jewelry. As a 3D printing service, we offer you a lot of different materials, technologies, and finishes to give life to all your projects. Among all of these possibilities we are offering you, you can choose to try lost-wax casting to start your jewelry business. Indeed, affording your own wax 3D printer might not be the most coherent and cheapest choice to develop your use of wax printing. Moreover, printing this material is a little bit more complicated to operate

Wax printing is mainly used to create dental molds and 3D printing jewelry. At Sculpteo, we are offering you the possibility to use our lost-wax printing process with our brass material and sterling silver material. You can visit these material pages to see how you can use properly brass or silver as 3D printing material, to consult the safety data sheets and white paper for proper design guidelines, and to find their shipping info.

Are you convinced of the extraordinary potential of 3D printing with wax and want to order your personalized jewelry designs?

Getting started is easy if you have a design, upload it to Sculpteo to print it. Otherwise, browse our 3D printing marketplace where you can find a complete gift guide of our customers featured stories to find your dreamed gift.

In case you have any questions about 3D printing with wax or any other rapid prototyping technique, do not hesitate to contact customer support.