Materials Guide

Finish

Matte to satin surface with visible but tidy layer lines. Sands easily, takes primer and acrylic paint well, and comes in plain, marble, silk, matte and wood-fill variants.

Our advice

PLA holds sharp edges and small features better than PETG or ABS, which is why most decorative orders are printed in it. It softens at around 55 to 60 °C, so keep it away from a sunny dashboard or a radiator. Thin parts can snap rather than bend if dropped on a hard floor.

Finish

Slightly glossy surface. Sanding is fiddly because the plastic goes gummy, so it is usually left as printed or painted lightly over a primer.

Our advice

PETG bends under load and springs back instead of cracking, and it tolerates long contact with water and a gentle dishwasher cycle. Detail is a touch softer than PLA and fine strings may need cleaning up. Choose it when the object will be handled roughly or live near a window or on a balcony.

Finish

Matte, paintable surface. Acetone vapour smoothing can bring it close to an injection-moulded look, which no other everyday filament allows.

Our advice

ABS softens only around 95 to 100 °C, well above PLA and PETG. It shrinks as it cools, so large parts can warp or crack unless printed in a heated enclosure; small and medium parts are far more reliable. For most functional objects PETG gives most of the toughness with less risk, so pick ABS for a specific reason such as heat or smoothing.

Finish

Matte, slightly satin surface similar to ABS. Sands and paints well and can be vapour smoothed like ABS.

Our advice

ASA keeps the heat resistance and toughness of ABS but does not yellow, chalk or grow brittle under UV, which makes it the best filament choice for anything left outdoors. It has the same warping tendency as ABS, so shape and size matter for a reliable print. For an indoor part that never sees sunlight, ABS or PETG usually does the same job.

Finish

Soft, slightly matte, rubbery feel. It cannot be sanded or smoothed in the usual way and is normally used as printed; colour comes from the filament itself rather than paint.

Our advice

TPU is very hard to break: it deforms under impact and returns to shape, which is what you want for a case or a bumper. Hardness varies by grade, so tell us whether you need something floppy like a silicone band or firm like a shoe sole. It prints slowly and detail is coarser than in rigid plastics, so keep designs simple and chunky.

Finish

White, beige or dark grey base with dark or pale flecks running all the way through the plastic. The speckles break up layer lines, so a 0.2 mm print can read smoother than a plain colour at a finer layer height. Painting covers the effect completely.

Our advice

Mechanically it is ordinary PLA, so the same heat and impact limits apply. The speckles are too coarse for thumb-sized figures and make fine text harder to read; for those, use plain PLA or resin. The pattern is random, so two prints of the same model are similar but never identical.

Finish

High-gloss surface in gold, copper, pearl and many other shades; dual- and tri-colour silks shift hue with viewing angle. Gloss blurs layer lines, so it usually needs no post-processing, and painting would waste the effect.

Our advice

Silk PLA bonds slightly less well between layers than plain PLA, so it is a poor choice for anything that takes force or clicks together. It looks best on low-detail, curved geometry where light can slide along the surface. Heat and outdoor limits are the same as standard PLA.

Finish

Pale green, white or pastel in daylight, with a slightly grainy surface from the phosphorescent powder. Sanding is possible but it works best left as printed with thick walls that hold more glowing material.

Our advice

A few minutes under a lamp or in sunlight gives roughly 10 to 30 minutes of visible glow that fades gradually; green glows brightest and longest, blue and aqua are dimmer. Thin details glow faintly at best, so chunky shapes work better. The powder makes the filament somewhat more brittle than plain PLA.

Finish

Very smooth surface with layers of 0.025 to 0.05 mm that are practically invisible. Grey is ideal for painting; white, black, clear and a few colours are also available. Sands and primes beautifully.

Our advice

Standard resin cures hard and brittle, a bit like hard candy, so thin outstretched parts can snap if the model is dropped. Every part is washed, UV-cured and de-supported before it reaches you, so it is safe to handle. Sunlight keeps curing resin over years and makes it more brittle, so keep it indoors.

Finish

Detail is nearly identical to standard resin and the surface sands and paints the same way. Usually printed in grey and then primed and painted, which hides the base colour entirely.

Our advice

Tough and ABS-like are marketing names for resins with added flexibility: they bend a little before breaking, roughly like ABS plastic. You give up almost nothing in detail, which is why most gaming miniatures are printed in it. For functional parts bigger than a hand, PETG filament is usually the better fit.