World's First 3D Printed Trombone

[AbracadabraMan]

This is crazy. It was part of a reddit 3d printing contest. This guy printed this full sized trombone, and it plays rather nicely. I wonder how much it cost him in ABS/PLA.



I mean we've seen a lot of musical instruments printed on 3d printers in the past, but I think this is the first in the horn family. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[PrunesRSweet]

I must say that I am really impressed by the way this thing sounds. I wouldn't think plastic would be able to handle the airflow like a real trombone. I'm sure it doesn't sound anywhere near as good as a real one if you listen to it side by side with a real trombone, but I must admit I'm pretty impressed. Nice work by this fellow.

[Piercet]

Hi there! Someone commented that this thread was here over in my little youtube video there, and I saw the question, so I decided to reply.
The trombone was made of around 1-2 lbs of green ABS plastic, which I purchased at $70 for a 5lb roll. So call it $28-ish for plastic, which includes the rejected prototype pieces along the way, and the material removed from the raft segments I used for printing the long skinny tubes. Actual cost of the final printed parts was probably closer to $20, then there was another $0.50 for the heat set insert and cap screw for the water release valve at the end of the slide, and probably $7 worth of PVC, PEX and glue. Also 12 hours worth of electricity.

I took the finished trombone over to play it next to a real one, and it does sound a bit more muffled than an all brass unit. It's also harder for some reason to reach the mid tones on the plastic one than it is on the standard brass based unit. It is plenty loud though. You lose the resonance that the brass provided, but airflow itself seems to be fine. The slide also has a tiny bit more friction than the metal equivalent, but still certainly in the playable range. The 3d printed mouthpiece definitely needs some work, as the shank on it is way too fragile and the inner cup isn't quite the ideal shape.

I'm actually working on a 3d printed trumpet as well. The valves are the sticking point on that one (pun intended) but asuming I can get my hands on a real trumpet to see how the pathing should look, that may be a reality here in the next few months too.

Glad you enjoyed the Trombone!

[Eddie]

Thanks for sharing Piercet. Be sure to share your Trumpet with us as soon as you finish it. The Trombone is amazing!

[RitzLLS]

That's awesome Piercet! How did you actually make this? Where did you come up with all the designs for the parts? Did you design them all yourself?

[Piercet]

That's awesome Piercet! How did you actually make this? Where did you come up with all the designs for the parts? Did you design them all yourself?

I did the initial modeling in Autodesk inventor. I started with the bell, which I made as large as I could fit in my 200mm x 200mm x 160mm build area, then worked my way back from there until I met up with the slide. I had a general idea of how I wanted to put the slide together, so the diameters of the inner and outer slide and tuning slide pieces set the main internal diameter of the curved tube sections. I basically extruded the seed for each piece from the adjacent piece, altering the geometry as dictated by the parts that I needed to attach. All the overhangs were chamfered with 45 degree angles to print without support.

All the parts were designed by me over a 10 day period for the contest, with a few redesigns required along the way, For example the original inner slide tube mount piece was way off and took a couple tries to get right and strong enough for real use. The piece I had initially was too fragile so i had to thicken it and shorten the mouthpiece segment. I did get some of the basic dimensions (length of the inner and outer slides, length of the bell segment to the rear slide round, and length from the rear slide round to the slide join piece) from a Conn 48H tenor trombone, but everything else is pretty much just based off the general dimensions that I decided on to make everything fit. I knew the bell needed to clear the slide by 2 inches, so that dictated the width of the tuning slide round and mount, etc. Seems to have worked out ok.

[Hall_of_Famer]

Wow DUDE! That's impressive. And for it to take only 10 days is even more so. I'm wondering how many pieces did you print, and how long did the entire printing process take you?

[kennycoulter]

Amazing! I like to think of the potential in the form of a young kid that wants to play, but the family wouldn't have the money to afford the instrument! this seems so great, and I hope that you can help people out with your skills and ideas!

[Piercet]

Wow DUDE! That's impressive. And for it to take only 10 days is even more so. I'm wondering how many pieces did you print, and how long did the entire printing process take you?

There are 11 printed parts total including the two halves of the mouthpiece. All told the final pieces took about 12 hours to print. I was able to do the bell and most of the longer sections in one shot. The slide inner tube mounts for the main slide and the tuning slide took 2 and 3 attempts each respectivly. The humb support bracket piece took two tries to get right. The back slide round popped off the bed on the first 4 attempts, so I ended up adding the removable print raft to it. Once I started doing that they printed really well. Assembly took about an hour, not including glue set time.

[intohim]

Wow, that's a short print period. I guess it makes sense breaking it down into so many parts because it shortens the print time. I would have expected that it had taken you at least a week to print this thing! Can't wait to see your Trumpet as well.