Materials, lines and finishes
With 3D additive manufacturing or StratoConception®, you can give birth to your most fantastic creative desires by exploring new materials, freeing your lines and sublimating the material with exceptional finishes.
ATELIER FALHER specialises in additive manufacturing in wood and composite materials. We can help you go beyond the usual design limits for your new creation in wood, composite materials or a combination of the two.
We are fully aware of the advantages and disadvantages of each material, which we select for its qualities and characteristics that are specially suited to working with additive manufacturing.
All the birch, oak and beech wood panels we choose are sustainably managed and PEFC certified. The PlanAcryl® composite material has also been adopted because of its eco-labels.
To choose the best option for your project,
contact us to create Your 3D wood project
Give birth to your most fantastic 3D creative desires in wood
and free your lines, explore, sublimate the material
exploring Materials
Birch plywood
Native to Northern Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltic States, the common or “warty” Birch is also found in France. It is fast-growing, easy to cultivate and ideal for reforestation. It lives for around a hundred years in cold countries.
Birch is remarkable for its white, smooth, almost shiny bark. Its wood is quite light in colour, and appreciated for its pale colour. This very light, sometimes yellowish, colour comes from betulin. The wood’s very homogeneous grain makes it very attractive for decoration and popular with interior architects and designers.
In additive manufacturing, the birch plywood panel allows great creativity, finesse and softness.
Light and strong at the same time, it is often peeled and sliced to make cross-laminated plywood panels. With mechanical characteristics close to those of beech, it is known for its strength and ability to be shaped. In this way, Birch retains the shape it is given for a long time.
It is also economical, as the value of a cubic metre of Birch plywood can be similar to that of a single strip of other wood species.
It is an extraordinary high-tech material. It has the highest strength along the fibre (up to 30% higher than fir, for example). Its aesthetics are remarkable, with the edges visible and beautiful.
Oak glulam
Oak grows in the northern hemisphere, particularly in the forests of Brittany and Normandy. There are several species: sessile and pedunculate..
Used until the 19th century for its hardwood, which was used in sculpture, shipbuilding and carpentry, oak is now appreciated for its many qualities :
- its beauty and aesthetics, with unique colour variations from light brown to golden brown
- its natural hardness and strength
- its durability, thanks to wood from balanced forests
It grows slowly. That’s why it takes 150 years before it can be used for building work.
Oak is easy to machine, with a completely smooth, silky surface.
In additive manufacturing, glued laminated oak panels, whether finger-jointed or not, are a noble material that is difficult to work with because of its hardness.
Although glued-laminated, oak panels are solid. The advantage of glulam assembly lies in the maximised use of wood, optimised by the small cross-sections of the boards that make it up.
This legendary species is ideal for prestigious projects that emphasise naturalness, durability and strength.
Beech glulam
Beech is one of the main tree species found in the forests of Europe’s humid temperate climate. In France, it occupies 10% of the forests. It lives to be around 150 years old, but can live to be 400. Its rapid growth means that it can reach a height of 40 m in 40 years, making it a valuable asset for the sustainable management of forest resources.
Beech wood has long been cultivated for the production of furniture, objects and utensils.
It is hard, with a variety of colours ranging from white to yellow, grey and pink. It also has no distinct sapwood. Its fine, short grain makes it easy to work and bend.
It is durable in dry conditions, but perishable in damp conditions. This makes it particularly suitable for the manufacture of high-quality glulam.
This makes it both economically and ecologically advantageous. The assembly of the juxtaposed pieces of wood is controlled. Production is dry. The raw material is optimised thanks to extremely precise dimensioning. Finishing is carried out in the cabin.
In additive manufacturing, glued laminated beech panels, like oak panels, are a noble material to work with.
Creative projects find in this fine species their ally for :
- great freedom of design,
- It can be mixed with other materials,
- aesthetic flexibility thanks to its diversity of appearances,
- durability and resistance.
PlanAcryl® composite material
Chosen by ATELIER FALHER for its advantageous characteristics, the PlanAcryl® composite material is suitable for shaping into 2D and 3D shapes and for the additive manufacturing process.
It is pleasant and soft to the touch, with a silky, non-porous surface. It is available in a wide range of colours for original creations and translucent shades that promise new perspectives for designers and interior architects.
This composite material offers UV resistance, colour consistency and an exceptional assembly finish with imperceptible joints. In this way, it enables original designs to be created in perfect harmony with wood.
PlanAcryl®, distributed by PlanAcryl, is a 100% acrylic resin composite material, making it non-toxic.
A special feature is that it retains the same consistency whatever its thickness.
ISO 9001 . ISO 14001 . GreenGuard . NFS . LGA . IMO . LNE . MPA NRW . DIBt
free Your lines
Lines . Aesthetics . Ergonomics . Fluidity . Lightness . Sobriety
3D additive manufacturing offers an unrivalled combination of technology and aesthetics, to create your designs with a variety of curves, both angular and rounded.
ATELIER FALHER is your privileged partner, mastering the technology and the material, to serve the faithful realisation of your project.
Respect for lines & Solidity of design
Using the 2D or 3D elements supplied, ATELIER FALHER carries out an impeccable check of the fineness of the mesh (in the Rhinocéros software), which is essential for the perfect creation of the lines and curves of your creations in wood and composite materials.
In this way, 3D additive manufacturing makes it possible to bring extraordinary designs to life, freeing up your lines, exploring materials and sublimating materials with perfect finishes.
The various elements of the design can be reassembled into the final piece without any visible joints, thanks to positioning and reinforcement inserts that are invisible after assembly. The resulting glued laminate is stable and solid.
The thicknesses and weights of the sections can be reduced to a minimum, and the skinnings and undercuttings obtained by turning over the sheets of material to give shape to objects that are exact, complex, reproducible, solid and magnificent.
TELIER FALHER takes care to salute the aesthetics of the wood in your creations and interprets the material by revealing the angular and rounded designs and lines of the wood in the volume.
We also carry out mass simulations and place the centres of gravity invisibly to ensure that your creations are balanced and robust. The mechanical strength of a piece of furniture can be validated by the FCBA Institute of Technology.
sublimate through Finishes
for a finish that combines the beauty and solidity of solid wood with the incredible softness and warmth of wood
The creation of a piece results in fine sandpapering that magnifies the lines and the material.
At your request, ATELIER FALHER can carry out the varnishing. We then deliver the primed parts for final lacquering..