Looking for two different filaments... help | reco

do they make a food safe filament?
do they make a good clear filament?

what should i buy and where can i buy?

thanks!!

What research have you done so far?

You need to define what you mean by clear. If you want to print something that looks like sculpted glass, well, that'll be a challenge for an FDM printer like I believe you have. The issue is that although a filament may be clear and print clear, the edges on each print layer will lead to light reflecting/refracting that hinders a print from being perfectly clear. When I wanted to do a "clear" print long ago, FormFutura HD-glass and Taulman t-glase were popular suggestions. I ended up with MakerBot Natural PLA since it was something I could buy locally. Fairly nice highly translucent result for the nightlight globe I was printing, but very stringy stuff to work with. I later bought some HD-glass but haven't tried it yet. Adding a finish coat in clear polyurethane or a specialty coating like XTC-3D may be worth looking at.

Food-safe or food-grade isn't tough to find. The ability to print a food-safe object has been argued even here multiple times. The basis of the argument has been whether or not the layer grooves in a printed object can be adequately cleaned after each use. Let's not start another debate here and leave it as something that each person printing objects has to decide on their own. Applying a food-safe finish coat would probably help.

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Originally Posted by printbus

What research have you done so far?

You need to define what you mean by clear. If you want to print something that looks like sculpted glass, well, that'll be a challenge for an FDM printer like I believe you have. The issue is that although a filament may be clear and print clear, the edges on each print layer will lead to light reflecting/refracting that hinders a print from being perfectly clear. When I wanted to do a "clear" print long ago, FormFutura HD-glass and Taulman t-glase were popular suggestions. I ended up with MakerBot Natural PLA since it was something I could buy locally. Fairly nice highly translucent result for the nightlight globe I was printing, but very stringy stuff to work with. I later bought some HD-glass but haven't tried it yet. Adding a finish coat in clear polyurethane or a specialty coating like XTC-3D may be worth looking at.

Food-safe or food-grade isn't tough to find. The ability to print a food-safe object has been argued even here multiple times. The basis of the argument has been whether or not the layer grooves in a printed object can be adequately cleaned after each use. Let's not start another debate here and leave it as something that each person printing objects has to decide on their own. Applying a food-safe finish coat would probably help.

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thanks for the solid info. the research i have done is read some posts, try to shop and look for examples of how the pla will print and look. what i finally bought was this for clear:

Maker Series PETG - 3D - HD Clear Glass [not sure if i can get this to stick but will try]
Maker Series PLA - 3D PLA-3D-Natural (clear)

in terms of food safe i hear you on the debate that we dont want to hash up again. i just figured it would be good to have some pla that i could make a spoon or chopstick or a toothbrush etc etc etc... when i first asked i figured it was a relatively easy question to as for recommendations not realizing its not.

make the spoon, chopstick out of the pet-g NOT the pla.
pet-g is food contact safe. this means it does NOT leach cehmicals into food.
Pla is NOT food contact safe. generally nobody knows the exact mix of chermicals in any given brand of pla - so it can't certified food contact safe.

Let' put it this way how many people own wooded kitchen utensils.
3d printed has less crevices than old wooden utensils.

But on the chemical side - pet-g for food items, not pla.

There is a spanish company who have made a food safe material. It can be autoclaved for sterility.
If the new filaments are anything like their nylon - they'll be pretty amazing. I have samples to test :-)
http://www.mymatsolutions.com/products/

You can buy Nylon 680 Filament which is specially designed designed for food, medical , dental industries.

For good clear filament I've printed with PCTG and if you print it around 285-290C and print slowly it comes out very clear. Highly recommend. Haven't been able to find any food safe materials yet