A clay vase sits in the center of a circular table, with an extruder in contact with the top surface. The extruder has a tube containing clay on the right side, with a motor mounted above an auger over the main nozzle.

Clay Extruder Enables Printable Pottery

July 11, 2026 by Aaron Beckendorf 38 Comments

Ceramic 3D printers, despite using the same fundamental mechanism as standard FDM printers, are much harder to find. Part of this comes down to the material properties of fired ceramics versus thermoplastics, but they’re also significantly harder to build; for example, in his ceramic printer build, [Joshua Bird] had to deal with severe material shrinkage, collapsing bridges, and the surprisingly abrasive effects of clay.

The centerpiece of the printer is the clay extruder: an air compressor pushes clay along a tube into the extruder, which uses an auger to squeeze the clay through the nozzle, while a gap at the top lets trapped air escape. The extruder has enough control for successful retractions, but rheology remained a challenge: the clay needed to be soft enough to flow through the nozzle, but stiff enough to form bridges without collapsing. [Joshua] thus pressurized the clay as much as possible, making it possible to use stiffer clay mixtures. The extruder’s greatest challenge was longevity: [Joshua] tried many 3D-printed plastic augers, but the clay abraded them all much too quickly, often in under an hour of use; a 3D-printed stainless steel extruder solved this.

Printing in ceramic isn’t a simple process: for each part, [Joshua] had to mix the clay, load it into the tube, clean the extruder, actually print the object, let it dry, fire it, apply glaze, and fire it again. The clay’s shrinkage during drying and firing destroyed many prints, but [Joshua] was nevertheless able to print a double-walled cup, a decorative climbing-themed cup, and even a chain-mail mesh.

The 3D printer’s motion system is a polar design, an adaptation of his earlier non-planar 3D printer, which might eventually make it easier to print overhangs. We’ve previously seen a similar auger-based clay extruder, an approach reminiscent of direct-granule FDM printing.

CeraMetal Lets You Print Metal, Cheaply And Easily

July 21, 2024 by Elliot Williams 27 Comments

3D printing metal has been somewhat of a holy grail for the last decade in the hobby 3DP scene. We’ve seen a number of solutions, including using expensive filaments that incorporate metal into the usual plastic. In parallel, we’ve seen ceramic printers, and paste printers in general, coming into their own. What if you combined the two?

You’d get [Leah Buechly] et al’s CeraMetal process, which is the cheapest and most straightforward metal printing method we’ve seen to date. It all starts off with a custom bronze metal clay, made up of 100 g bronze powder, 0.17 g methyl cellulose, 0.33 g xanthan gum, and 9 g water. The water is fine-tuned to get the right consistency, and then it’s extruded and sintered.

The printer in question is an off-the-shelf ceramic printer that appears to use a pressurized clay feed into an auger, and prints on a linen bed. [Leah] had to write a custom slicer firmware that essentially runs in vase mode but incorporates infill as well, because the stop-start of normal slicers wreaked havoc with clay printing.

The part is then buried in activated carbon for support, and fired in a kiln. The result is a 3D printed bronze part on the cheap; the material cost is essentially just the cost of the metal powder and your effort.

We had never heard of metal clay before, but apparently jewelers have been using it for metals other than just bronze. The Metal Clay Academy, from the references section of the paper, is an amazing resource if you want to recreate this at home.

Paste printers are sounding more and more interesting. Obvious applications include printing chocolate and printing pancakes, but now that we’re talking metal parts with reasonably consistent shrinkage, they’ve got our attention.

Slab Casting – A New Way To Combine 3D Printing And Ceramics

December 20, 2023 by Navarre Bartz 11 Comments

Slip casting can be messy both in processing and in making the original plaster mold. What if there was a better way, thanks to 3D printing?

[Allie Katz] has developed a new technique using 3D printed slab molds to make ceramics. By combining the ability of 3D printing to make intricate designs and the formability of clay, they have found a way to make reproducible clay objects without all that tedious mucking about with liquid clay.

[Katz] takes us through a quick “Mould Making 101” before showing how the slab casting press molds were made. Starting with a positive CAD design, the molds were designed to eliminate undercuts and allow for air infiltration since a plastic mold can’t suck the water out of the clay like a plaster one would. Some ~~cookie~~ clay cutters were also designed to help with the trickier bits of geometry. Once everything was printed, the molds were coated with cornstarch and clay was pressed in. After removal, any final details like handles can be added and the pieces are then fired as normal.

If you’d like to see some more 3D printing mixed up with ceramics, check out 3D printing glass with a laser, reliable ceramic slurry printing, or this TPU-based approach.

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Your 3D Printer Could Print Stone

December 27, 2017 by Al Williams 38 Comments

Most of our 3D printers print in plastic. While metal printing exists, the setup for it is expensive and the less expensive it is, the less impressive the results are. But there are other materials available, including ceramic. You don’t see many hobby-level ceramic printers, but a company, StoneFlower, aims to change all that with a print head that fits a normal 3D printer and extrudes clay. You can see a video of the device, below. They say with some modifications, it can print other things, including solder paste.

The concept isn’t new. There are printers that can do this on the market. However, they still aren’t a common item. Partially, this is a cost issue as many of these printers are pricey. They also often require compressed air to move the viscous clay through tubes. StoneFlower has a syringe pump that doesn’t use compressed air.

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