I’m interested in turning in real metal 3d prints. I found “Filamet” copper filled filament that promise to be able to be sintered in a klin ( http://www.thevirtualfoundry.com/ is site of the producer). It claims to be 85% copper filled PLA and to be turnable in pure sintered in solid metal piece by the use of their “magic black powder” product and the use of a Klin. I would very pleased to know if anybody is using this tecnique and if obtained pieces are as expected. I found another PLA that claims to be 80% copper filled and costs almost half the price: http://www.formfutura.com/175mm-metalfil-classic-copper.html . Anybody tried it? Is it suitable too for sintering?
The magic black powder approach seems to work but I’m not sure it has any advantages over lost-PLA casting. What they’re effectively doing is using the print to produce a negative mold made of magic black powder, then that supports the print as the PLA burns off, until it gets hot enough for the metal particles to start to sinter together.
I know that a guy at MRRF had a paste extruder setup with metal powder in the paste. Those parts were placed in a kiln. Does that help?
@NathanielStenzel metal clay printer.
@Ryan_Carlyle basically, but I would definitely describe it as a paste when it comes to how well it flows.
@NathanielStenzel sure, there’s different viscosities, but the term for the material they’re extruding is metal clay.
We have a paste extruder add on that can be bolted straight to a printrbot Simple (or anything that is strong and you are willing to hack). That will dispense precious metal clay bought off Amazon. Throw it in a kiln and boom.
We can also print the virtual foundry stuff w any of our printers. There is light shrinkage with that- less than paste pmc.
I’m going to do some of that this summer 
Brook
In my experience you need to be very careful with this filament as it likes to break. This was right after opening the spool that was stored in a air tight tote with desiccant in it, so it is not due to moisture.
I limited any bend in the filament coming off the spool and the path is straight right into the extruder, with this method I have not experienced any breaks.
I only polish the prints as I do not have a kiln.
The image is the bronze filament, the copper was shipped on a much smaller spool.
missing/deleted image from Google+
I have a klin for ceramics available. Another option for metals was using a microwave klin as ones for glass but I can’t have easily a temperature control in such kind of klin