Communications of the ACM
Professor Creates 3D-Printed Saxophone
Professor Olaf Diegel playing the saxophone he created on a 3-D printer. The next version will look better, he says.
Credit: YouTube
Olaf Diegel, a professor of product development at Lund University in Sweden, has created the world's first 3D-printed saxophone. Diegel developed the prototype in just six months.
The saxophone was printed in nylon from 41 different components, weighing less than 25% of a real saxophone. And while the instrument sounds impressive, Diegel is already planning another prototype, with both mechanical and aesthetic improvements.
"The next version will be even better looking, as 3-D printing allows me to create shapes that would be impossible to make with traditional manufacturing," Diegel says.
Diegel has previously printed other instruments, including guitars, and says one major advantage of the 3-D printing method is customizing instruments to individual needs.
"One day, we could see people starting to get involved in the design of their own products so that the products suit their needs or personalities better," he says.
Describing the process, Diegel says he "first designed the saxophone in 3-D CAD software. Then, I sent the model to the 3-D printer which sliced it up into very thin slices, and then 'printed' each slice, one on top of the other until the whole sax was printed. In this case, it 'printed' each slice by spreading a very thin layer of plastic powder, and a laser then scanned the shape of the sax for that layer. After that, it spread another layer of powder on top of the first, and repeated the process again and again until the whole sax was done."
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