Youngstown company refreshes architecture with 3D printing
When we talk about 3D printing, a lot of the focus has been on more industrial applications, but there's a company in Youngstown able to preserve a piece of the past with some technology straight out of the future.
Freshmade 3D, inside the Youngstown Business Incubator's Tech Block Building Five, has a different approach from some of the heavy industrial 3D printing companies.
"Additive manufacturing has been tremendously popular for manufacturing tools and industrial uses, which is super important. But something that I feel has been overlooked is the use for artistic and creative applications," said Freshmade co-founder and CEO Rich Wetzel.
A few years ago, Freshmade focused more on out-of-print auto parts, but now they've developed a material called AMClad, shifting their focus more toward architecture and art.
"The way we can do that is leveraging our digital design tools, such as 3D scanners, reverse engineering software, and CAD software as well," said Wetzel.
"One scanner like we have here captures the actual color; it's called the texture map, of the piece itself as opposed to one that just captures the point data. It might not have the color data on it, but it's just a little bit more accurate," said co-founder and COO Christopher Tomko.
So what it can do is use new technology to take something very old and bring it back to life.
A perfect example is these detailed pieces from Allegheny College in Meadville, around 150 years old, in desperate need of replacing, but not exactly something you could pick up at Home Depot.
"When you have a human touch involved where you have carving, sculpting out of clay, carving out of wood, there's artistry there," said Tomko.
"The original capital piece with the spiral volutes on it is over 150 years old. You can see how degraded the wood and the paint has become," said Wetzel. "This feels like you wouldn't even know it was 3D printed, like a cast stone product."
And whether it's a scaled-down version of the Volney Rogers statue or a car key that no one's made in decades, it's all now possible again inside YBI.
"Obviously, the word incubator fits it perfectly. So it's not just incubating companies, it's incubating thoughts and ideas," said Tomko.
Even old ideas made new again here in Youngstown.
Freshmade 3D worked a lot with Humtown Products in Leetonia on the sand-based material used in AMClad. They can end up with a variety of different finishes made in a matter of days using the technology in their shop.
