Welding Wood and Future of Wood 3D Printing

Can you weld wood? it looks like you can. It can be done by applying friction and mechanical vibration in what is known as friction welding. The cellulose and lignin in wood melt at some 180 C and bond together forming a welded seam.
The weld seam has a simillar strength to glued one. It also means that no more toxic glues and adhesives should be used to bond wooden parts.


Here is video presentation of wood welding :





This technology could be used in 3d printing in same way some industrial metal printers use sheet lamination induced by ultrasonic vibration. It could be also used in FDM as the same process could be used to "melt" the wood and extrude it in layers.

Here are several links to more articles and papers about it:

http://www.nordicforestresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/NV_2005_4.pdf

http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=s0718-221x2003000200001&script=sci_arttext

http://web.utk.edu/~mtaylo29/pages/Wood%20welding.htm

Austrian company that already extrudes wood mass:

http://www.wood-kplus.at/index.html

Reddit thread:

https://www.reddit.com/r/woodworking/comments/3ox7dv/linear_friction_welding_of_wood/

Two pieces of wood with welding seam from friction welding

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How to use friction welding to repair and make 3d printed objects

Here are two video guides by youtube user Scorch on using a Dremel based DIY friction welder. Great work Scorch!

Here is a video on how to make a Buckyball from 3d printed hexagons:



... and video on how to repair 3d printed objects:




Friction welding works with both PLA and ABS.

While good people of Hackaday think this is a new 3d printing technique it is actually used for a quite some time now.

here you can see it in action making and repairing stuff:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/01/how-to-friction-weld-plastic-with.html

... and here you can see a guide on how to make it work and make a small DIY plastic welder:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2013/01/diy-friction-plastic-welder-by-fran.html

And if you want to use 3d printed plastic rivets for friction riveting things together:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/01/3d-printed-rivets-for-friction-welding.html

If you want to go the ultrasonic way or DIY heat plastic welding in the "old school style":

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2012/12/diy-ultrasonic-plastic-welding.html

And here is how a friction welding seam looks like (from Scorch's video):

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3d printed rivets for friction welding plastic with Dremel tool

You can friction weld plastic together with a help of Dremel tool as described and shown here:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/01/how-to-friction-weld-plastic-with.html

There are also 3d printable "rivets" that you can insert and do a sort of "blind" or Pop riveting.

You can download files for printing them here:

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:61510

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How to friction weld plastic with filament and Dremel

Electronhacks made this video to show production process of the 3d printed fan duct. However it is also excellent demonstration of friction welding plastic with filament inserted into Dremel. The friction produced makes a strong welded bond.



Video by ElectronHacks

Here are 3d printable rivets that you can use:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2014/01/3d-printed-rivets-for-friction-welding.html

Here is another post about DIY ultrasonic and soldering iron plastic welding:

http://diy3dprinting.blogspot.com/2012/12/diy-ultrasonic-plastic-welding.html

Update:

here is a video with same friction welding technique with PLA plastic.



Update 2:

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DIY friction plastic welder by Fran

Weld plastic with this DIY welder. It is some serious DIY magic.

http://www.frantone.com/designwritings/design_writings.html#welder

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