A chessboard made with both technologies

With Christmas just around the corner, we wanted to show you that the world of rapid prototyping (commonly known as 3D PRINTING) can be applied in a wide variety of fields.

This chessboard, composed of 64 squares alternating black and white, was produced simultaneously with our new machine
Multi Jet Fusion HP
machine and one of our
Powder Sintering
.

In producing this chessboard, we wanted to highlight the color contrast and dimensional precision of our two technologies, while at the same time being playful and original.

Multi Jet Fusion and its secrets

To make things clearer: the dark board and counters are made from Multi Jet Fusion HP and colored black. To achieve this rendering, we first worked on the 3D file. We’ve removed the squares we want to be white, to create a tray with the dark blocks in a single block. This tray has been specifically positioned in our HP Multi Jet fusion printer for ideal aesthetics. Then we launched 8 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, the king and the queen. Once the Multi Jet Fusion HP parts had been printed, cleaned and sandblasted, they were dipped in a black colorant bath, then dried.

Powder Sintering and its success

As far as the white parts are concerned, you’ll have understood that these are raw Powder Sinter elements in PA 12.

We then recovered from the 3D file the small squares removed for the HP Multi Jet Fusion parts. The 32 white squares have been printed with the 8 pawns, 2 rooks, 2 knights, 2 bishops, king and queen as for the Multi Jet Fusion HP, but in Powder Sinter. Once these Powder Sintering parts have been printed and cleaned, they are sandblasted.

All the elements are assembled, the squares glued together and the counters positioned. All you have to do is play!

Good luck!