Maker

CandyFab

How we built a 3D freeform sugar printer in our kitchen. By Windell Oskay and Lenore Edman

LAST YEAR, WE HAD A CRAZY IDEA.

It started out something like this: “Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a 3D printer?”

Machines for printing three-dimensional forms do, of course, exist, and utilize a variety of complementary and competing technologies known by such intimidating names as stereolithography, selective laser sintering, and fused deposition modeling. If this were ten years in the future, we would just go down to one of our local big-box stores and pick one up.

Unfortunately, solid freeform fabricators, as these machines are collectively known, are not household tools; they almost universally come with five- or six-digit price tags. They are intended for rapid prototyping, making precise models of parts that

38 Make: Volume 12

otherwise would be made by expensive and time-consuming conventional machining processes.

But we were really after a device to play with, not some uber-expensive industrial manufacturing system. So we built one ourselves.

Our idea was to use sugar as the printing medium. It’s remarkably inexpensive and is rigid despite its low melting point. As it melts, it gives off heavenly fumes — the final touch making it ideal for the home prototyper. To actually build something with it, we came up with a low-cost, low-tech method that we call Selective Hot Air Sintering And Melting (SHASAM — good acronyms help). We move a hot air gun over a bed of sugar to melt it locally. The bed is then lowered, another layer of sugar is added, and the heater is moved over the new layer, melting

Photography by Windell Oskay