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A comment on Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger [video]. Parent comment

Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by dendrite9 on Friday November 17, 2023 @05:36AM (#38301731)
Would you consider the parts you made foodsafe? Or would you have to use the parts to make a mold, then produce foodsafe parts? The nooks and crannies in 3d printed plastic, plus the less controlled melting/cooling has concerned me for making something which is food safe. Mostly the concern about places for bacteria to hide on the parts.
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Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by withinboredom on Friday November 17, 2023 @06:19AM (#38302004)
It also depends on what you are doing. If they are single-use, they can be made food-safe pretty easily, even with the nooks and crannies. With 3d printing, it can be pretty cheap to do single-use stuff. You can also electro-plate them with silver and have a pretty sanitary part.
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Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by Chris2048 on Friday November 17, 2023 @08:24AM (#38303164)
> You can also electro-plate them

You can electro-plate thermoplastic?

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Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by rcxdude on Friday November 17, 2023 @11:27AM (#38305740)
Yes. It generally involves applying a mildly conductive layer first, for which there are a variety of techniques.
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Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by alpaca128 on Friday November 17, 2023 @06:33AM (#38302111)
Probably the only way to make it reliably foodsafe without a lot of postprocessing would be replacing the parts frequently. It's possible to perfectly merge the layers by printing with 100% infill, burying the part in fine grained salt and then remelting it in an oven, but that takes time.
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Re:Why Simone Giertz spent 3 years working on a coat hanger ... by fxtentacle on Friday November 17, 2023 @11:48AM (#38306109)
No, the stuff that directly comes out of the 3D printer is not foodsafe. Some of it is biocompatible, though, which means you can safely lick it for a while. But you can use 3D printing to create foodsafe molds and then use them to cast foodsafe plastic copies of your 3D-printed master.
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