Coaster

Combination of natural materials and 3d printing allows creation of functional and dare I say beautiful results. Wood strips in the coaster not only effectively thermally isolate 3d print form heat and cold, but also bring visual appeal and texture.

Fully 3d printable variants of the coaster that do not use wood are available.

Bill of Materials

• 3d printed Coaster base

• wood strips 8mm x 8mm 

• 8mm silicone sticky pads (optional)

• wood lacquer, oil or other treatment for wood waterproofing (optional)

• flexible glue (optional)

Tools needed

• 3d printed cutting jig (optional)

• splitting saw

• chamfering tools (these by Per-form-3d worked great for a this project)

• sanding paper
  

Wood strips of this size are sold NOT dimensionally stable or straight. Take care to pick pieces carefully. Bring printed Coaster base with you to ensure that strips will fit at least in one orientation. 

Building instructions

• print Coaster base
  
  Feel free to print base in high layer heights, 0.28 worked well for the project.
  
  Consider using PETG or other more temperature resistant materials, but PLA also works well if the heat resistance is not a priority.
  
  Once sliced check bridging in the Coaster base and make sure that it runs in the direction of channels for the wood strips. This ensures clean print that will not have issue with embedding sticky pads. Rotate the stl or change the value of Bridge angle settings to ensure alignment.
  

  

• print Coaster cutting tool (optional)
  
  Tool will help you to cut wood strips into required length without need to measure and help you to ensure squareness. It is best to print tool in PETG so that it better withstands heat and friction from the saw.
  
  

• use chamfering tools to chamfer wood strips on all sides
  
  Observe the grain of the wood strips carefully and chamfer pieces in that direction to avoid tear-out and chamfering tool digging into the wood. Chamfer the pieces to 0.6 mm or more. 
  
  

• cut wood to 8.8cm length pieces. If using cutting tool, make sure to chamfer edges of the cut before inserting wood piece into the jig. You will need 7 pieces per coaster.
  
  

• treat the wood. Coasters in the picture were stained, sended, stained again and oiled
  
  

• if using, add sticky pads to the bottom of the case and insert wood pieces into the base. If too loose apply small amount of the flexible glue. 
  

You can replace wood pieces with Coaster plank printed 7 times per coaster. Prefer PETG or other heat resistant materials if the part comes to direct contact with hot mugs.

You can also use Coaster fully printed part to print coaster in one piece. In that case, you can insert filament change at 7.5 mm to print base and "wood" parts in different colors.