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Has anyone had any luck printing with the Colorfabb Steelfill filament?

I ordered a roll to print a statue for a customer (which should be a 38 hour print).

However, I find the Steelfill filament so brittle, I cannot even feed it through the bowden tube of any of my printers without snapping in two.

The roll I have was just taken out of its wrapping, so it’s absolutely new.

Diameter is 2.85mm.

Had anyone else had a similar problem with steelfill and if so, how did you solve it.

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Hey Maarten,

I’ve had this with pretty much all metal composite filaments before. Something that can help with this is to try to dry the filament at around 50°C for an hour or two in an oven. Even though you probably just unpacked the spool, moisture could be a problem right from the factory. Make sure you cool the filament down by just leaving it in the shut down oven until it reaches room temperature, I ruined a roll of Copperfill by cooling it too quickly.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Jonas

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Hi Jonas,

Thanks for the reply. I’ve printed with Bronzefill quite a bit (although, not a 30 hour print) and also with Stonefill (which also breaks every 2 hours or so).

I am too busy right now to try again, but I was thinking quite the opposite. Perhaps the roll is TOO dry.

So I have left it out in the open the last few days (I can always dry it again).

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Hey Maarten,

I know it seems intuitive that something brittle is also dry. However I have a bunch of scrap PLA pieces laying around to use for purging when I don’t have a new spool to load ready to go. Those have been sitting out in ambient air for nigh-on 4 years and have turned extremely brittle, too. That’s why I suspect this is the case for you. With a new spool the age should not be a factor.

I did have an issue with Woodfill shipping wet, with only steam pouring from the nozzle instead of filament, from Colorfabb (which was very speedily replaced with a dry one, thanks to their support). To me something similar is in the realm of possibility.

Sincerely,

Jonas

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Funny, I use old strips of PLA in the same way…

It seems to depend on the brand of PLA I use. Some get really brittle after a while, but others it seems not to matter much. I have more issues with some brands that use very narrow spools that it is almost impossible to offwind the filament without it getting itself in a knot.

As for the steelfill, I try again this weekend.