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Home / Blog / Materials & Technology

Materials & Technology Articles

How PLA, PETG, silk filament and resin actually behave in a working print farm: durability, colour, finish, and the trade-offs behind each choice.

Most material advice online is written from a single desktop machine. These articles are written from a production floor in Laval, Quebec, where the same design gets printed in many materials, in many colours, across many machines, and the differences show up as returns and reprints rather than as opinions.

The practical buyer’s questions get their own guides: whether a figurine will survive a sunny windowsill, how a display piece ages, what silk and multi-colour filaments really change about the look of a finished model, and when resin is worth it over FDM for fine detail.

For people running their own printers, the same section carries the process side — bed adhesion, calibration, extruder choice, speed versus quality, and how a cold Canadian workshop changes all of it.

We describe what we can demonstrate from our own production. Where a claim depends on how a piece is displayed and handled, the guides say so instead of rounding it up.

Start with PLA vs PETG, then the best filament for 3D printed figurines and durability and care. For the machines behind it, read Behind the Print Farm.

63 articles

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss November 24, 2025 8 min read

3D Print Speed vs Quality: How to Find the Perfect Balance for Every Project

Speed and quality are the two forces that every 3D printing operator must learn to balance. Push the speed dial too far and surface defects…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss November 15, 2025 8 min read

The Science Behind 3D Print Bed Adhesion: Thermal Bonding, Surface Chemistry, and Mechanical Grip

First-layer adhesion is not a matter of luck or ritual. It is governed by well-understood principles of thermodynamics, surface chemistry, and mechanical engineering. When operators…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss November 5, 2025 8 min read

3D Printer Calibration Guide: Bed Leveling, E-Steps, Flow Rate, and Temperature Tuning

You can own the best printer on the market, use premium filament, and slice with perfect settings, but without proper calibration, your prints will disappoint.…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss November 3, 2025 8 min read

Silk PLA Filament: The Premium Material Behind Our Best-Looking Prints

Silk PLA Filament: The Premium Material Behind Our Best-Looking Prints Pick up a standard PLA figurine and a silk PLA figurine side by side. The…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss October 27, 2025 9 min read

Troubleshooting Common 3D Print Failures: A Production-Tested Visual Guide

Even experienced operators encounter print failures. At 3DCentral, where over 200 printers run simultaneously in our Laval, Quebec facility, we have seen every failure mode…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss October 21, 2025 7 min read

3D Printing Layer Height Explained: The Complete Guide to Quality and Speed

Layer height is the single most impactful setting in FDM 3D printing. It controls surface smoothness, detail resolution, print time, structural strength, and material consumption.…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss October 10, 2025 8 min read

Glow-in-the-Dark 3D Prints: Complete Guide to Materials, Printing Tips, and Best Designs

Glow-in-the-dark 3D prints occupy a unique position in the collectibles world. They are decorative objects by day and luminous display pieces by night. The dual-personality…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss September 19, 2025 7 min read

Silk PLA Filament: The Premium Metallic Finish for Luxury 3D Printed Collectibles

Silk PLA transforms the perception of 3D printed objects. Where standard PLA produces matte or semi-gloss surfaces that read immediately as plastic, silk PLA creates…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss September 12, 2025 8 min read

Bed Adhesion Solutions: How to Get a Perfect First Layer on Every 3D Print

The first layer is the foundation of every 3D print. When adhesion works, you can walk away from the printer with confidence. When it fails,…

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Kawaii illustration of filament spools, material swatches, and 3D printing technology.
Materials & Technology By Jonathan Dion-Voss September 7, 2025 7 min read

Understanding Support Structures in 3D Printing

Support structures are the temporary scaffolding that FDM printers build to hold up overhanging features during printing. They are essential for producing complex geometry, but…

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