Whenever someone asks me for a surprising additive manufacturing (AM) use case, I often reach for K3D's dough cutting knife - a topologically optimised, 3D printed end-use product, capable of cutting 8,000 dough pieces per hour.
The collaborative project between Additive Industries and baking equipment manufacturer Royal Kaak took home the TCT Award for Industrial Applications back in 2019. Now, K3D, a subsidiary of Royal Kaak, has upped its investment in metal 3D printing with the purchase of two more MetalFab systems.
The Netherlands-based AM service provider now has six MetalFab systems operating across two manufacturing sites, running materials including Stainless Steel 316L, Aluminium AlSi10Mg and Titanium Ti6Al4V. K3D was also the international launch customer of the MetalFab 300 Flex system back in 2024. An early adopter of Additive Industries' metal AM technology, K3D recently announced the production of its one-millionth metal AM part.
Jaap Bulsink, CTO of K3D, commented: "These machines have proven to be highly reliable and are known for their robustness and high productivity, where our fully automated MetalFab has achieved utilization rates of up to 95% over the past few years. Ideal for large products, but also for series production of smaller parts, they are a perfect addition to our existing machines. With this expansion, K3D can serve its customers even better and is one of the largest players in the field of additive manufacturing for metals in Europe."
Rik Bakker, CEO of Additive Industries, added: "It is testament to the quality, productivity and consistency of our products that customers like K3D continue to place their confidence and future success of their business in the MetalFab hardware, with their first MetalFab system delivered back in 2016 still consistently producing production parts for their customers."
Over the last decade, Additive Industries' MetalFab systems have been adopted by the likes of SWISSto12,
TCT Team
