3D Printing Wood - I Don't Know If I Like It

[onocoffee]

I heard about it so I ordered a roll of Elegoo PLA Oak Wood 3D Filament and printed this headphone stand. The designed gave it a coarse wood grain texture that's very reminiscent of red oak, so I guess that's apropos. There is definitely a "feel" to it that is different from the standard PLA and PETG I've been using. I'm reading more about it but I think these can even take some finishes?

The oak color is definitely very white/pale. I thought about ordering the walnut but the pics didn't look that appealing and it looked too dark. Any thoughts?

I asked this about CNC work and the response was overwhelmingly that CNC woodworking IS Woodworking. Could the same be said of Wood 3D Printing?

 

[luvmytoolz]

For me personally I'm sick of hearing people very proudly, publicly and loudly proclaim that CNC isn't woodworking because it's not pure to the idea. You can be guaranteed those same people use electricity and power and hand tools to achieve anything they do, which I'm sure the purists could argue just as well that they're not real woodworkers because they use power, etc.

Having said that, I'm not so convinced myself you could call 3D printing woodworking, even though the filament is supposed to be "wood filled", whatever that means. The trouble I have is when I run a job on a CNC for 12 hours, I'm starting with a timber slab or project primarily composed of wood. And I'm removing parts of that wood to alter the appearance of it to help shape it to a design that I may have spent a week on, but it's still fundamentally wood, that then also usually requires a huge amount of manual labour (woodworking) to bring it to full completion.

As good as 3D printing looks, and the stand you made looks really great by the way, there's no getting around the fact that while it may be "wood-like" or "wood filled", it's still plastic. Your 3D printer with that filament could be considered woodworking by some, I would call it an associated or complementary technology to woodworking.

The 3D resin printer I have though I would say flat out I would never consider to be any form of wood working.

 

[bobtskutter]

NO!
To me 3D printing is an offshoot of Computer Aided Design. The printing is easy, just load the file and press go. The CAD work is the hard part.
I would call CNC cutting wood and then assembling it wood work, but I would call CNC cutting aluminium on the same machine metal work even if they were cutting the same object.

@onocoffee if you're starting to print with filament that contains fibres (wood, cork, carbon etc) you might need hardened nozzles or large diameter nozzles.

Regards
Bob

 

[Mike Goetzke]

I heard about it so I ordered a roll of Elegoo PLA Oak Wood 3D Filament and printed this headphone stand. The designed gave it a coarse wood grain texture that's very reminiscent of red oak, so I guess that's apropos. There is definitely a "feel" to it that is different from the standard PLA and PETG I've been using. I'm reading more about it but I think these can even take some finishes?

The oak color is definitely very white/pale. I thought about ordering the walnut but the pics didn't look that appealing and it looked too dark. Any thoughts?

I asked this about CNC work and the response was overwhelmingly that CNC woodworking IS Woodworking. Could the same be said of Wood 3D Printing?

Nice- I need one of those. I had an Ender 3 Pro for a few years but just decided to upgrade to a Bambu Lab P2S with a four spool feed they call AMS 2 Pro. It is supposed to get here tomorrow so I can't wait. I purchased a lot of HF Matte PETG for my builds. I only used PLA in my Ender 2 Pro. May need to bug you about setting for the PETG.

 

[onocoffee]

Nice- I need one of those. I had an Ender 3 Pro for a few years but just decided to upgrade to a Bambu Lab P2S with a four spool feed they call AMS 2 Pro. It is supposed to get here tomorrow so I can't wait. I purchased a lot of HF Matte PETG for my builds. I only used PLA in my Ender 2 Pro. May need to bug you about setting for the PETG.

I was actually gifted the Ender 3 over a year ago. Nice printer. But my brother, who has been printing for awhile, said to me: "It's a good printer if you want your hobby to be 3D Printers instead of the 3D printing." Funny guy, but a couple months later, it started getting wonky and I just didn't have the bandwith to do the bed tuning and muck with it. I left it alone for the rest of 2025. I think you will find the P2S to be an enjoyable experience. One of my YouTuber friends has one and loves it. I love that I can sit back, use the app and start a print without having to move. No more slicing and then transferring to a card and taking that card to the printer. And the AMS - a month ago, I thought the notion of multiple AMS was silly (much like I thought Bluetooth was silly on a CT). Lately, I've been thinking "sure would be nice not to have to get up and change the spool in the AMS when I can have 17 filaments with the max AMS units".

 

[Cypren]

The best description I've ever heard of this phenomenon is "Bambu sells products, not projects". They really did revolutionize the industry and make 3D printing so much more accessible in such a short time.

 

[Chainring]

I held out on the whole 3D printing thing precisely because it seemed to be more of a hobby around the 3D printer rather than the printing, itself. Then comes Christmas and my wife got us a Bambu A1 Mini. While its build plate is small, that thing is a champ. It just does its job and it seems to be pretty fast.

 

[Chainring]

@onocoffee

Seventeen filaments in the AMS? IIRC, it's up to 12, possibly 13. Still, that's a crazy amount of filament to have online.

 

[WillAdams]

I believe that 3D printing wood filament fails to be "woodworking" in that it is missing the "working" aspect --- the nearest to it would be sculpting something out of putty or clay.

It also fails the check of the "worksmanship of risk" vs. "worksmanship of certainty" as discussed in David Pye's The Nature and Art of Workmanship:

The Nature and Art of Workmanship

This is a digital reprint of David Pye's original 1968 …

www.goodreads.com

When I was a kid making stuff by mixing piles of sawdust w/ Elmer's School Glue, no one characterized the result as "woodworking"....

 

[MacBoy]

We can all pretend, and also be pretenders ;-)

My mom proudly told the new people in town, “My son is an Electrical Engineer”.

They quickly ask if I can fix their television, toaster, ceiling lights …”

She retorted with “He only designs those fancy computer boards, not fixing broken things!”

It’s embarrassing to graduate as an Electrical Engineer, but not be able to do any of the practical things around the house.

Since then I’ve improved my DIY skills thanks to Bob Villa, Norm Abram and the Family Handyman, WOOD and Fine Woodworking magazines.

And now we have resourceful gems on the interwebs!

 

[luvmytoolz]

@MacBoy I'd be glad in your shoes. When I did Electronics Engineering every person I remotely knew would hassle me to "urgently" fix everything from microwaves to VHS players, it was insane. I ended up having to downplay it and say no as a flat rule.

Funnily enough I've found it's the same doing woodwork.

 

[onocoffee]

@onocoffee

Seventeen filaments in the AMS? IIRC, it's up to 12, possibly 13. Still, that's a crazy amount of filament to have online.

The P1S, and I'm pretty sure the P2S as well as the H2 series can have up to four of the AMS units plus the one single, which I believe is a total of 17 filaments.