I posted recently about the flexibility of various plastics including PLA, ABS, and nylon. While I’ve been wanting to play with so called “flex” materials for quite some time, I just received my first spool today from Print3DD.com. They’ve been out-of-stock ever since I bought my printer, but I noticed over the weekend that they finally have the flex filament in stock and picked up a roll today.

The first print is a simple twisted loft cup:

For the first test, it is quite small… just 3cm diameter and 2cm high.

So, is it flexible? It isn’t loose and flexible like a soft rubber. It definitely feels like a plastic. But it really does flex. Compared to any of the materials, only the nylon compares in flexibility, but since this test print is so much smaller, I would guess that even nylon would have been more stiff and likely to permanently deform if squeezed the way this print can.

I tried rolling it between my fingers.

Afterwards, it just returned to normal:

While I can think of many things that might benefit from being able to bend without breaking and still spring back (such as belt clips), one thing I really want is some kind of slipper that I can wear into the pond that doesn’t get soggy like a shoe, and doesn’t fall off like flip-flops, but still protects my feet from sharp rocks or even nails and any other construction materials that might have fallen into the water. This might be just the material to flexible enough when I take a step while still rigid enough to provide protection. Might be worth a try.