Additive manufacturing for the footwear industry
When Tecnostudio decided to purchase a professional printer for 3D printing, the company was operating in the footwear sector.
In the past, the company had also already used a 3D printing machine for gypsum. With it, prototypes of soles were printed which, duly modified and perfected, were used for the production of aluminum molds. Molds in which the rubber soles were made by injection. Making aluminum molds and making any changes thereafter is a notoriously expensive process, with important time frames. This is why we started looking elsewhere, in search of other production systems and more modern solutions for 3D printing of polymers.
The professional additive manufacturing, carried out thanks to 3ntr machines, allowed us to create shoe prototypes in a quick and versatile way, printing even half a pair, so as to be able to view them in real size and, possibly, glue them to the upper part, to have a more truthful idea of what the finished product would have been.
3D printed soles and shoe models
The specific need was to be able to print prototypes of soles in flexible material, so as to better evaluate the volume and proportions, before starting a larger-scale production. From the point of view of materials, the choice fell on ABS and TPU filaments: polymers widely used in 3D printing.