Try “Hydrothermoforming” Your 3D-Printed Parts

The whole point of 3D printing is, of course, to get 3D parts. But the square-cube law is a cruel mistress and adding that third axis into the equation eats up a lot of time. Wouldn’t it be great if you could print your parts flat and make them become 3D? That’s the idea behind this “hydrothermoforming” technique.

This comes from Zion Brock, who you may remember for his awesome 3D-printed radio design we recently featured. That radio really caught on with the community and Brock has been hard at work making the design more accessible. A big part of that is refining the radio’s grill and potential fabrication methods to make it easier to print.

Brock had great success with thermoforming by printing the grill flat and then shaping it over a mandrel, using a heat gun to soften the PLA plastic.

Hydrothermoforming — a term Brock coined — works in the same way, except it relies on very hot water to do the softening. Fill a tub with water as hot as you can safely handle, put on some thick gloves, and then dunk the part in the water while forming it around the mandrel.

Brock’s experiments with hydrothermoforming the radio grill were somewhat inconclusive. It did work well and the radio looks great. But Brock notes that it was significantly harder than normal thermoforming, requiring both more time and more finesse. However, it did produce slightly better results in some key areas with tight bends.

The takeaway is that this hydrothermoforming technique could be useful in some situations and it is worth tucking away into your mental toolbox, in case the need ever arises.