3D printing of a shoe LAST

[Maximus91]

Hi all,

Currently I am exploring the manufacturing of a shoe last using 3D print technology. For your reference, I want to print something similar to this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:10307. So just to clarify, I am not looking to 3D print an entire shoe, just the last itself.

I have two questions:
1) Which 3D printing method (Stereo lithography / Digital Light Processing / Selective Laser Melting / … ) would you recommend for this application, taking into account the smoothness of the surface of the shoe last (i.e. the step size should be < x mm).
2) Which material would you recommend which is most akin to hard wood (traditionally, shoe lasts are made from hard wood such as rock maple or beech). Key requirement is that you need to be able to hammer nails into the shoe last (see: https://www.google.co.uk/search?neww...VnQTDzUipvM%3A)

Thank you in advance.

[awerby]

It doesn't seem to me that most 3D printing technologies would be up to creating something like that, which needs to stand up to repeated hammer blows. Leaving aside metal prints, most of them use rather fragile plastics, which also have a tendency to separate along the lamination lines. If you really need custom lasts made, consider CNC carving in rock maple or similarly hard woods.

Andrew Werby
www.computersculpture.com