If there was a Room 101 situation for 3D printing, you'd barely be able to squeeze the door shut from the pile of tired words and phrases I'm sure most of us would like to never see again. You know the ones: the 'game changer's, the 'industry leader's, the tech company bios that use a lot of words but say very little ...
But, if there's room for one more, I would throw in: 'AM's dirty little secret'.
The term has been the albatross around the neck of post-processing ever since I can remember. It's a sentiment given to all of the bits of the process chain that happen after a print has come off the build platform - the depowdering, support removal, dying, smoothing, blasting, heat treatment, and so on. Like an unwanted high school nickname that just won't shift, I saw the phrase used even as recently as Formnext in press releases to describe post-processing's necessity. I can even guarantee I've used it myself in this very magazine over the years - we were all young and impressionable once.
Granted, 10 years ago, it felt warranted. I would visit futuristic-looking factories, proudly showing off their dashboards of data and automated guided vehicles zipping around a spotless floor, only to end up in a room where a guy with a chisel was hacking away at a piece of metal that's supposed to represent the digitisation of manufacturing. Hardly. It was the bit nobody wanted to talk about when demonstrating perfectly shiny parts on a trade show booth; heat exchangers with wafer thin walls presented without a mention as to how you might get rid of any leftover powder from such incredibly complex structures.
But as post-processing specialists like DyeMansion and Solukon mark 10-year anniversaries, surely the secret is well and truly out?
