Metallic magic
Undermounted lighting and fancy molding are great ways to dress up a boring cabinet door. But unusual knobs, handles or drawer pulls are an even better way to infuse a room with personality and style.
For some people, having the same cabinet knobs as a million other people just won’t do. What if you want something unique, say, a certain species of trout for the bathroom in your fishing cottage or a favorite flower, vegetable or utensil for your kitchen?
Metaltec Innovations, a division of Irwin, Pa.-based ProMetal/Ex One Co., has just the ticket.
Using a revolutionary printing process, artists there are able to take any computer-aided design plan and — in a perfect marriage of art and math — turn it into a solid, three-dimensional product.
Like a sheet of baklava, the design is laid down, one minuscule layer at a time, in stainless steel powder that’s held in place by a laser-activated binder, or glue (How minuscule? Each layer is just 1/4,000 of an inch.)
After the “build boxes” have been printed, they’re placed in a curing oven for two to 10 hours. Then, it’s on to a sintering furnace. Here is where the binder that holds the steel together is burned out and the metal powder is melted together, creating a metallurgical sound, solid structure.
Bronze can be introduced at this time to give the design heft. The company also can print in copper, so long as the part is small.
“We can create things you could never do with a mold casting or machine process,” said general manager Bob Wood.
That includes not just intricate designs with deep undercuts or wonderfully complex geometric shapes, but also fairly large sculptures and other pieces of artwork.
To drive the point home, Wood points to a detailed copy of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris that the company recently made for a client.
The Gothic building’s majestic rose window is clearly visible, along with its distinctive 228-foot-tall bell towers and slender spires. Metaltec also has brought to life the whimsical work of artist Gil Bruvel along with that of California sculptor Bathsheba Grossman in a mixture of stainless steel and bronze.
Three-D printing also makes it possible to print items with moving parts, like a ram’s-head doorknocker.
The technology might sound very new millennium, but it was developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology more than a decade ago (ProMetal holds all rights). Initially, the company used it for rapid metal prototyping for industrial businesses. Then, a couple of years ago, as ProMetal moved toward production, it decided to go after more general consumers.
Most customers had trouble conceptualizing what the company could do, Wood said.
“So we picked a product line — hardware — that would be easy to demonstrate.” And Metaltec was born.
Because each piece is 100 percent customizable, the only limit to a design (beside the additional fee) is your imagination.
Well, that and your pocketbook.
Products run about $50 per cubic inch of material.
Still, the hardware is comparable in price to other high-end decorative hardware by makers such as Rocky Mountain Hardware, Wood said. A 21/2-inch stone crab knob in a standard finish costs $100 while a 3.98-inch starfish knob imbedded in a delicate lattice of coral will set you back $167 apiece. A 10-by-51/2-inch door knocker in the shape of a turtle costs $778.
Metaltec also offers decorative, dimensional wall tiles (a 6-by-6-inch tile with a raised buffalo skull costs $500), custom art pieces and entire wall murals (an 18-by-6-inch mural of a koi fish pond runs $3,387). All products, which are bead blasted to a smooth finish or hand-polished with carbide bits, are available in several different metal alloys, including copper, pewter and bronze, as well as in custom finishes and patinas.
The company also digitally manufactures precious-metal dental copings (the inner core of a dental crown) and gold restorations through its Image division.
For more information on Metaltec Innovation’s products or to shop online, visit www.3dMetaltec.com. If you would like a custom product or have a design you would like to have printed, call 724-863-9663.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service
