How I 3D Printed a Metal Aerospike Rocket at Home

3d printing is pretty cool it allows the average maker to get the most complex geometry parts with only one tool a 3d printer the problem is that as of right now the best you can do with a regular 3d printer is get parts out of plastic or resin and you can do a lot with those materials but what if your gold is going more hardcore what if your goal is going metal this video was brought to you by kiwico as you might know i'm a big fan of engines especially rocket engines they are able to produce power using only cheap fuels and clever mechanisms and to me that is just beautiful i love to build them and test them but because i have limited skills and a finite set of tools i mostly resort to 3d printing as you might imagine high temperature engines and 3d printing plastic are not very compatible which turns my passion into a paradoxical mess of course i'm aware there's metal 3d printers in the market but they are not exactly affordable and unless jeff bezos makes a healthy contribution to my patreon account i don't think i'm getting one in the foreseeable future engines aside it would be amazing to be able to 3d print metal parts getting super strong and temperature resistant parts without needing fancy equipment and a lot of skill would be wonderful so what choices do i have normally when i can't buy i diy so i could probably just try to build my own metal 3d printer and i did that didn't go so well casting is a good choice but becomes really hard when you're talking about high temperature metals like steel machining falls on the same category and for more complex geometries doesn't really work in the past i used this resin with ceramic particles to get 3d printed ceramic parts to do that i would 3d print the parts in the resin burn the resin off and then get a fully ceramic part that actually worked pretty well so the question here is can i do the same thing with metal surprisingly you can i found this company called virtual foundry that makes these spools of 3d printed filament that have metal impregnated into the plastic in essence it's just like in the case of the ceramic resin it's just plastic mixed with metal powder you print the part in a regular printer burn off the plastic and cheddar you get a metal part in theory i've been around long enough to know that things are never that simple but anyway i got some of that metal filament to test but before we do that let's go through the process the first step is to choose a 3d model to print because i love engines i chose the aerospike rocket nozzle obviously the obvious next step is to use my beloved not jordan to 3d print the rocket nozzle but because the filament i'm using has bronze powder in it which might damage my fragile brass nozzle i got a new and improved super resistant grouping nozzle the ruby nozzle like the subtle name indicates as ruby on the tip that is as tough as nails which is a weird expression because nails break all the time next i 3d printed my rocket nozzle in bronze filament using 100 infill so i could get a solid part the part came out looking pretty nice but still had plastic in it so the next step was getting rid of it to get rid of the plastic we need to burn it off but as you can imagine that is not as simple as putting cookies in the oven the part needs to go through two stages de-binding and sintering during the de-binding stage the plastic burns off slowly actually it sublimates once the plastic is all gone we ramp up the temperature to unify the metal that was left behind to do these stages the part needs to go through a thermal cycle that can reach hundreds of degrees and to do that you're gonna need a programmable kiln luckily i have one it's name is barracha because the part is gonna get very very hot it gets to a point in which almost melts and because of that gets very very mushy it only takes gravity to deform it to give some support to the pot i put it in a ceramic cup and buried it in aluminum sand then i put it on the kiln and made it go through the de-binding stage to burn off the plastic this process took about 8 hours to be finished so in the meantime i cleaned my bathroom took the trash out took a nap watched some youtube went for a jog hate some cereal took another nap and removed the sand cup from the kiln and i sprinkled it with sintering carbon because the next stage is the sintering stage and that means very high temperatures the purpose of the sintering carbon is to protect the part from the evil oxygen that likes to oxidize stuff i put the white cup back into the kiln and waited i did a lot of waiting in this project i got so bored that i ended up watching this video on youtube about an aussie guy trying to kill trees with an axe made out of trees i also watched one in which he created a giant beyblade i don't know but i think he should probably put some rockets on it youtube is a weird place and that's why i love it okay here you go moment of truth i'm gonna start by removing this oh there's a lot of carbon left you see that i can reutilize this is it good is it bad oh it doesn't seem too bad are you seeing this look i still have to clean it but it's a little bit warped that i can tell you let me try to remove it and put it aside okay here is our part okay let's clean the board oh i can feel it's metal it's metal all right it's a little bit warped can you see that it's a little bit warped and also look you can see the shiny bronze in the bottom [Music] okay you can see it i made a hole in this part as a and as you can see it's solid all the way through so all the plastic is gone everything's centered and it's all solid so the part was a little bit warped and a little bit smaller but that's exactly what happens when you burn the 10 plastic out of it it shrinks the warping probably happened because i didn't pack the aluminum sand well enough it's not a complete success but it was literally my first attempt and what did i get a solid bronze aerospike nozzle it's pretty amazing just think about that i've been trying to use 3d printing to get solid metal parts for a long time and here i have it it's awesome and not expensive at all sponsor time so my sister is mad at me because it's summer and i don't want my sisters melting into the couch watching cringy tick tocks made by other greasy teenagers i got her a kid from kiwiko kiwiko creates these cool hands-on projects that teach kids about science technology engineering heart and math stew this time they sent a project to build a citric acid and baking soda rocket and that is where the problem begun i mean they know i love rockets i couldn't contain myself i waited for wanted to be finished assembling the rocket and then i tested it before she could she wasn't too mad about that but because the rocket worked so well it ended up on the top of our roof and that's a problem because i'm not getting it i'm afraid of heights if you also want to pretend that you're ordering the project for your kids and then you steal it when they are finished assembling it well you can get fifty percent off your first month of any grade by going to cubico.com taxi link in the description down below by checking the link in the description down below you're helping your kid yourself and me everyone wins i mean except luana back to the project as good as bronze is is not enough to satisfy my anger from metal so i got some steel filament i 3d printed the exact same nozzle in a pla filament with a lot of steel in it and i put it back in the sandcap except this time i used a different kind of sand because still needs more temperature and the aluminum sand couldn't handle it by the way if you're curious to see what happens when you take out the part right after the de-binding stage this is what happens work so i have the steel part inside the ceramic cup with the sand and all the stuff ready to go into the kiln but because i didn't really like the insane amount of time that i had to wait the last time what i did was i called the inventor of the filament and i asked them if there was a way to shorten the thermal cycle and he said you okay this is what he actually said okay so to shorten the sintering cycle you can ramp at an even rate for three hours to the sintering temperature and then hold at the centering temperature for another three to four hours in total the thermal cycle would amount to about six hours which i know still seems like a lot of time but trust me it's not i put the part on the kiln watched all of the lord of the rings movies and then took it out and i know some of you are gonna say that six hours is not enough to watch all of the movies but remember the part needs to cool yeah eat that here we are once again once again let me see if there's some carbon left okay there's there's carbon left and not a lot of it but uh that doesn't matter i forget we have carbon it's probable that everything went fine just remove it so i can use it again i think something went wrong oh what a mess i think it's simple it's centered for uh too long it's completely melted i mean it's metal all right well let's try this again [Music] six hours later [Music] come on kids the cookies are ready okay we have something here we have the result oh wait i need to focus oh it's popping the part is popping as you can see it's far from perfect oh i almost dropped it um but it's still a solid still and um i think i'm getting there i'm gonna try and do the full cycle no shortcuts this time i'm just gonna stick to the the full cycle and try to get a perfect part yep 24 hours later [Music] not a lot of carbon left [Music] seems to be metal there's still a lot of butter around it uh but it seems very solid i need to i need to clean it and yeah maybe drill a hole into it just to make sure it's solid and if that works i have the perfect recipe as i feel it it seems very solid but i'm not sure if it is i need to make sure [Music] okay so i made a hole in the nozzle and as you can see it's almost solid like there's about uh half a millimeter that didn't center it but the nozzle itself is it's still like it's basically a hollow nozzle in the walls but everything else uh it's still so i'm gonna call it a half success i think that's fine for now anyway um i don't have any more sintering carbon so that's about it for me i can't test no more until i get more i'm going to just polish the nozzle and make it beautiful so beautiful [Music] [Music] house [Music] metal yeah it's true i don't have any more sintering carbon so i can no longer center any more steel parts but as far as i know i don't really have to i mean that nozzle seems fine to me if only i had a rocket engine that i built a few videos ago to test a ceramic nozzle that has the exact same geometry as this one [Music] please focus so i have here all that i need the nozzle the fuel and uh not the engine it's just it's just dude i made it a long time ago it's gonna work i think i need to clean [Music] it [Music] [Music] okay can you see me you can we are ready to test the rocket so i'm gonna use um the same alcohol and syringe method as the last time i'm gonna inject some alcohol into the rocket light it up go to the oxygen and see what happens yeah i i only get one shot of this okay injecting the alcohol i'm gonna try to get as far into the fuel grain as possible [Music] okay it's burning i'll tell you katrina oh my god yeah it melted the steel oh can you see this guys we should probably i should probably throw some water on this it's beautiful to watch though can you see that and it's gone oh jesus christ that was amazing i mean i still have to see the footage but uh the exhaust was intense and the nozzle is gone that's true but uh maybe i can do a a cooled nozzle i mean i know steel is not uh impermeable to temperature but i can cool it i can cool it and uh it's much more resistant than the ceramic one yeah let's face it this is not an impressive rocket engine it's not an impressive achievement in rocket science and is not even an impressive display of propulsion power but let me be very clear you should be impressed i just found a way to make a steel nozzle with a complex geometry that using any other manufacturing process would be very hard to make be very expensive and take a very very long time i mean this one still takes a long time but you know what i mean wait a second are you bragging in taxa no actually i'm giving praise to the people that made this process available to regular makers like myself and those people are the people at the virtual foundry if you want to try this for yourself at home i'll leave a link in the description with everything you need to buy i'll also leave my printing profile for the metal filaments and the 3d model for the aerospike nozzle you can easily 3d print these metal filaments with a regular 3d printer and a steel nozzle but if you don't even have a 3d printer don't lose hope right away on my last video i gave away a 3d printer to the most liked comments suggesting a theme for a future video the winner was hi justin and he suggested that i could make a vertical water rocket how about a actual rocket i think i might be able to do it now if you also want to win a 3d printer all you need to do is subscribe to the channel leave a like on this video and post a comment suggesting a theme for a future video the most liked comments will receive a brand new 3d printer this time i'm also giving away another 3d printer and all you need to do to win it is follow me on instagram at intexzed and tag me on a video story where you show me why you deserve the 3d printer in this case i'll choose the winner myself so it's all about making an impression on me well this is everything for today i hope you enjoyed the video and remember tomatoes are disgusting see ya [Music] [Music] you sure you can hand down

Channel: Integza

Views: 1,027,754

Keywords:

Id: tw9VF1V-Lzc

Length: 19min 24sec (1164 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/LostPrimer]

You'd be better off lost-PLA casting aluminum. The shrinking of the part basically ruins all dimensional accuracy, and since its pot-metal "steel" you wont be using it for any pressure bearing surfaces anyway.

[u/ThatNustaBusta]

Not many people may have the kiln, but that's about the only issue I can think of. New to this, so I'm interested to hear your thoughts on why this is a terrible idea that's gonna end with my hand blown off ;P

[u/GunnitRust]

Sintering isn't a great process for any gun part that takes stress. Normal sintering some pressure is applied to make the particles stick together more. This has voids.

You know the MIM processes bas manufacturers use that people hate? Those are high end sintering processes. Its a great way to cheaply make a part with lots of dimensions that would make for complicated machining. Thats why low-end manufacturers like to MIM their strikers.

There have been 3d Printing technology that laser sinters the parts. The laser sintering is expensive but a lot better than this.

I suppose you dould make trigger guards and other ancillary things.

[u/Katzchen12]

Sooo, unless you have 1 mil or someone with a stratsys printer i would strongly recommend not pursuing 3d printed metal. As a machinist and 3d printer operator for a lovely organization that is looking to replace several load bearing items with printed parts i can tell you its not simple and its not plug and play. The best machines at best, produce a product that is in between a rough casting and a forged piece, these are powder bed machines and are very very expensive and require a machine shop to post process the parts still. Overall this is the best bet for any kind of fabrication for prototyping, however it is horrible for production as a 1x1 cube will take 2 days printing and if you want a good looking part at least 1-2 hours post processing and depending on metal at least 36 hours of heat treat or auto-claving (for near forged results). If this doesn't already sound expensive then you have more cash lying around than me. Its also like having a giant thermite bomb if you handle it wrong. This technology is only useful for small one off items and is not at all as good as a machinist with a decent gunsmithing shop, while it sounds fantastic it is far from refined and cheap.

There are other methods one is like a mig gun on a cnc router, theres hybrid cnc/3d printing machines and there new methods using cold spray. The mig option is the cheapest but produces a part that looks like dog shit and you have to machine it still, a lot of people using this setup cnc programs to cut the rough form to the finish.

If you are interested someone printed some metal guns awhile ago but only for prototyping i'll try to find the forgotten weapons video. It goes into depth about how prototyping for 3d printing vs production is very very different. I also want to add this isn't meant to discourage you in anyway, but the simple fact is 3d printing is a good tool but it can't replace a machine shop, at least not yet. I did see someone mention lost wax casting using pla, this to me is the best option for certain things, setup and instructions are everywhere for this type of casting but be warned it is not suitable for any load bearing parts as its the most unorganized of grain structures.hudson guns

[u/Cr1spie_Crunch]

Integza!

[u/baconbro99]

i don't think anyone has tried a more advanced filament, like PEEK or carbon fiber PEEK.

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You could look into that for an attempt at a 3d printed upper or glock slide. it's not cheap but it's stronger. I don't know if it's strong enough though and probably a pain to print.

[u/Thefamousloner]

It's always been a thing, found this vid a couple days ago and I realized a lot of things. Most of the ingredients are not in stock, you need a kiln, shrinkage is a big problem

[u/Cliffordtheredmenace]

You better be a good blacksmith because that shit warps