3D printed mouthpieces?

[gregwaits]

I’m sure someone has tried doing this. It would be interesting to know how they perform.

I suspect the lack of mass would be a problem.

[elmsandr]

There was a thread about this somewhat recently. Harrison had some done and then made in Brass, it allowed a quicker turnaround for prototypes and shape adjustments. There is a company that is offering them as part of their process for custom mouthpieces.

Cheers,
Andy

[braymond21]

I made one a while ago and it actually worked pretty well. I'm not very good at 3D modeling though so the dimensions were a bit off. I'd love to revisit it if I had some time to learn to make the models.

[harrisonreed]

Yeah I did one run of prototypes. The brass version was far superior to the plastic. The positive is that you can get a feel of how it will blow and and general playing characteristics. Near as I can tell, you will be able to tell how the backbore and throat will affect the octaves, accurately. And if you go forward with the design, you will have a plastic piece for cold outdoor gigs.

The negatives are that the mouthpiece will sound different than the real thing. You have to process the rim with steel wool or something (the maker did this for me) so it doesn't tear up your face, so the rim shape won't be exact. There is also guaranteed to be minor warping from the curing process.

I'd recommend it in this situation - you have a piece that you want to tweak somehow, and you already like it. So you make the cup or bore wider or something and try it out. If the change seems like it has an effect towards what you were going for, it might be trying in brass. If it's horrible, maybe it isn't what you were after

[dcslideman]

The last few years have seen the development of printed metal parts in addition to plastic. I have not seen it applied to mouthpieces, but I have seen it used at my company. It is of course, more expensive. There are many competing technologies. Here is a link to whet your appetite if you want. I haven't seen brass used, but definitely stainless.

https://www.hubs.com/knowledge-base/int ... -printing/

[hyperbolica]

It's faster and more economical to cnc or turn a mouthpiece unless it has some complex shape or undercuts that can't be machined. Printing metal isn't as straightforward as printing plastic. Even if you print a metal one you might wind up needing to machine the shank and second operation the rim to get tapered cylinder / surface finish needed for a functional mouthpiece.

[harrisonreed]

The last few years have seen the development of printed metal parts in addition to plastic. I have not seen it applied to mouthpieces, but I have seen it used at my company. It is of course, more expensive. There are many competing technologies. Here is a link to whet your appetite if you want. I haven't seen brass used, but definitely stainless.

https://www.hubs.com/knowledge-base/int ... -printing/

FWIW those hubs also do CNC in brass and stainless, and you can even get the brass silver plated. I couldn't attest to the finish and tolerances on some random CNC shop on one of those sites though.

[blap73]

I played around with this a bit. The problem is that the bore is going to have fine ridges as part of the plastic printing process. Typical Z-axis step size is 0.2 mm so you end up with a 0.2 mm corrugated bore. Now, since we have lots of folks saying they can tell the difference of a reversed tuning slide and doing things like chamfering tuning slide ends... all of that texture in a very narrow spot is going to have a substantial effect in comparison. Not to mention the vast difference in weight (a megatone it won't be). I agree w/Harrison, it may give you an indication that your change idea is worth trying in metal. But the first exercise is probably to totally duplicate your current MP in plastic and see how similar (or different) it is. If it is vastly different in 3D plastic then you aren't going to be able to determine much by 3D printing your brainstorm MP.

Maybe if you take a metal MP lower, and graft a 3D printed upper onto it... at least you could get around the bore texture problem.

[timothy42b]

I found this interesting:

https://all3dp.com/2/wax-3d-printing-ho ... print-wax/

Lost wax process - print in wax, cast in metal.