tyrion

Anyone done this? I know Specialized makes a fancy one, and I suspect it will be popular among boutique commercial companies. I'm wondering if anyone has made their own homemade saddle.

Troul 

would be a pain in the butt for the DIYer.

Toadmeister

i see what you did there…

UniChris

You'd probably have more luck printing molds for a carbon fiber or even fiberglass base.

Did you mean the lace one? That's not going to be very strong in a typical printing technology.

Cooperator

The printing medium will be the make-or-break on this project. Not all plastics will have the right flexibility properties. I'm sure Spec was very selective with their materials.

jccaclimber

This seems like a fairly high risk low reward sort of project, but I guess it's better than 3d printing a disc brake rotor.
If you wanted to 3d print a seat integrated into a seat tube I'd call that risky, but plausible with the correct engineering, or the right tolerance for the risk of unpleasant consequences of a seat/post failure.

If you want to 3d print a seat for a traditional seat post, it's a bit more suspect. I wouldn't trust any of the plastic printing materials I've seen to perform as seat-rails. I have a printer that does continuous filament carbon fiber inlay, but it only does it in 2d layers, so to truly do seat rails correctly would require printing on its side, and even then they would be wrapped in nylon which isn't ideal for that. I don't know if they'd hold up, but I doubt they would be weight competitive to something in the $5 used seat bin.
If you're talking a metal 3d printer, maybe, but the cost of operating those, assuming you even have one, is not insignificant. Once more, even if strength was sufficient I'm not sure I'd want a fully metal saddle. The comfort does in fact come from some level of flexibility.

3d printing molds seems much easier, and if you're just trying to make something vs. something cutting edge, composites aren't that hard to work with. On the other hand, the consequences of failure in most any structural bicycle component are not insignificant, so 3d printed water bottle cages might be a better starting point.

scottfsmith

I expect the OP was only thinking about reproducing what the commercial 3D printed saddles have - only the top part is 3D printed on them. It is only the cushion on the very top, there is a carbon shell below that which is not 3D printed.

This seems like it would be doable as an advanced 3D printing project. Take an existing saddle, remove all the padding, measure, model, print, repeat. It would also be a challenge to find a good filament and process in terms of flex, strength, and durability requirements.

phughes

I have a 3D printed saddle, custom formed to my butt. It's made of leather. A cow made the cover, Brooks put it on a frame, and my butt custom molded it to my shape.

tyrion

The journey is the reward. Sometimes.

tyrion

Actually I'd like to replicate a B17, but just a little bit wider, and without killing cows.

tyrion

I'd want it soft, like a leather hammock style, but without the leather.

jccaclimber

If it were me (it's not), I'd borrow an existing seat of the right shape, add clay or foam where you want it larger, wrap it in a layer of plastic and then fiberglass, and mold the synthetic material of your choice to that. You could also just go the plaster/sand route to make a female mold and fill that. Put whatever you make on the frame of your choice.

tyrion

I want to take my existing B17 and just say "like this but 10% wider". Just plug in variables. The idea is to be able to experiment inexpensively.

I'm just throwing stuff out there (inexpensively).

CliffordK

I could imagine 3D printing something like a Tioga Spyder clone. If one could only figure out the size and shape that works best with each rider.



The Specialized saddle looks unique. I think a few sizes, but the printing is primarily creating a flexible padding.

UniChris

That's what I meant by "the lace one" - you could print something that looked like that but at least in the common FDM technologies it wouldn't be very strong.

CliffordK

Your home printer may be limited, but there are fiber reinforced printing methods for industrial printing with excellent strength properties..