Forust Is the World’s First Manufacturer to
Use Additive Manufacturing to Upcycle Wood Byproducts for
the Production of Custom and Luxury Wood
Products
- Architect and author William McDonough, a globally-recognized
leader in sustainable development and design, hails the Forust
process as a true embodiment of Cradle to Cradle manufacturing
philosophy
- Swiss industrial designer Yves Béhar, founder of fuseproject,
is the first to design an exclusive collection of home goods for
production using the Forust process, now available for purchase on
www.forust.com
- Desktop Metal’s new Forust additive manufacturing process
upcycles wood waste from the approximately 15 billion trees cut
down each year1 into luxurious, high-quality, end-use wood parts
that can be used in a variety of industries, from consumer goods
and furniture to home goods and automotive luxury interiors
Desktop Metal (NYSE: DM), a leader in mass production additive
manufacturing (AM) solutions, today announced the launch of
Forust™, a new process to sustainably produce functional end-use
wood parts using its patented single pass binder jetting AM
technology. The Forust process upcycles waste byproducts from wood
manufacturing (cellulose dust) and the paper industry (lignin) and
re-materializes functional wood parts through high-speed 3D
printing including digital grain throughout the part.
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Forust is the world’s first manufacturing
process to use additive manufacturing to upcycle wood byproducts
for the production of custom and luxury wood designs. Unlike
particle board or laminate, Forust produces a wooden part with a
digital grain that flows throughout the entire part which can then
be sanded or finished. Software has the ability to digitally
reproduce nearly any wooden grain, including rosewood, ash,
zebrine, ebony and mahogany. (Photo: Business Wire)
Desktop Metal’s high-speed 3D printing technology offers
architects, designers and manufacturers a new path to produce
luxurious custom wood pieces for home decor, interiors,
transportation, and architectural design with a superior
environmental footprint, new geometries and quality unavailable
from subtractive wood manufacturing technology. Starting today,
businesses and consumers can visit the Forust website,
www.forust.com, to order samples and custom wood designs, and
manufacturers can engage with Forust to develop unique wood parts
for their end-use products.
According to William McDonough, architect, globally-recognized
leader in sustainable development and design, and pioneer of the
concepts of Cradle to Cradle, the Circular Economy, and the
Circular Carbon Economy, “The Forust technology allows us to take
something that was previously wood waste and re-materialize it into
exquisitely beautiful and useful things. We are honoring the
cellulose and lignin of the trees by rearticulating them into
assets for present and future generations. By allowing millions of
trees to remain in place in their forests, Forust is launching a
highly evolved technology for the circular technosphere that
supports and celebrates stewardship of the natural, regenerative,
and diverse biosphere, making it not only smart, but wise. This is
a historic and material opportunity in the history of design and
the making of things that reminds me of Arthur C. Clarke’s famous
quote, ‘Any technology that is sufficiently advanced is
indistinguishable from magic.’ As a lover of wood and forests, I
find Forust indistinguishable from magic. The 3D printing of wood
using waste natural materials is a gamechanger. We have only begun
to explore its beneficial potentials, but it is clear they are
immense.”
Transforming a Subtractive Industry That Began with Trees
into an Additive Industry That Begins with Upcycled Wood
Byproducts
Forust began with a vision to transform wood byproducts,
including sawdust and lignin, into finished wood products,
combining both stunning design and functionality. Led by industry
veteran and ceramics 3D printing pioneer, Andrew Jeffery, who
previously served as President of Boston Ceramics, the Forust team
brings decades of collective experience in additive manufacturing,
materials research, and computer aided design to solve the
challenge of sustainability in finished wood parts. Jeffery is
joined by co-inventors and creative consultants in industrial
design, Virginia San Fratello, Chair of the Department of Design at
San Jose State University, and Ronald Rael, Professor and Chair of
the Department of Architecture at the University of California
Berkeley, both of whom are also founding partners of 3D printing
company, Emerging Objects.
“The inspiration for Forust was to begin with sawdust and end
with forests,” said Jeffery. “Our process is based on extensive
research conducted over the past decade in the field of hardwood
lumber, leading to complex and elegant finished structures. Through
advanced CAD software, proprietary materials and Desktop Metal
binder jetting mass production platforms, we can now manufacture
beautiful, functional and innovative wood products for a variety of
architectural, interior, and home goods applications from upcycled
wood byproducts.”
Building a Greener Future with Additive Manufacturing for
Wood
At the core of this innovation is the Forust process, which
combines two waste streams from traditional wood production,
sawdust and lignin, to sustainably produce isotropic, high-strength
wood parts. Depending on the size of the parts, Forust can
manufacture wood products using either the Shop SystemTM or a
custom version of the new RAM 336TM 3D printer, which supports
prints up to two cubic meters in volume at speeds in excess of 100
liters of parts per hour. During the printing process, layers of
specially treated sawdust are spread and selectively joined by a
non-toxic and biodegradable binder. Digital grain is printed on
every layer and parts can then be sanded, stained, polished, dyed,
coated and refinished in the same manner as traditionally
manufactured wood components.
“Forust offers nearly unlimited design flexibility,” said
Jeffery. “From exotic grain structures to grainless wood, we can
digitally reproduce wood textures and a myriad of grain types. And,
because they are made from a wood and bioresin compound, these
parts exhibit the functionality and stiffness in line with
conventional wood. Our finished pieces are indistinguishable from
traditionally manufactured wood products you would find in a store.
The additive manufacturing process literally becomes
invisible.”
Forust is set to revolutionize volume production of wood parts
through a completely digital manufacturing process:
- Streamlined Production of Complex Wood Designs Because
Forust produces parts additively layer by layer without the need
for supports, designers have the freedom to create complex features
and iconic designs that would be difficult or impossible to produce
with traditional woodworking methods.
- High-Quality Materials and Finishes Unlike particle
board or laminate, Forust produces a wooden part with a digital
grain that flows throughout the entire part that can be sanded and
refinished. Software has the ability to digitally reproduce nearly
any wood grain, including rosewood, ash, zebrano, ebony and
mahogany, among others. Parts will also support a variety of wood
stains at launch, including natural, oak, ash, and walnut.
- Cost-Effective Carbon Footprint Reduction with On-Demand
Manufacturing Forust’s process and materials are designed to
offer easy access to an end-to-end sustainable manufacturing
solution. Manufacturers and designers can submit their own custom
designs for printing, order samples or pursue high-volume
partnerships to produce custom, 3D printed wood pieces in volume
for use in their products. Additive manufacturing enables digital
on-demand production, which minimizes material waste, on-the-shelf
inventory, and shipping pollution while offering hand-crafted
quality at an accessible price.
“We want to make it easy for designers to explore complex new
geometries for a wide variety of products and applications using an
age-old material,” said Jeffery. “At the end of the wood product’s
life, we would like to see customers have two choices - dispose of
it and it will biodegrade over time as any wood product would, or
shred it and repurpose the material into future parts through
Forust. Our vision is a true circular manufacturing process.”
Unlimited Design Applications for Wood Parts, Including
Exclusive Collection by Designer Yves Béhar
The global finished wood products market is expected to reach
$1.8 trillion by 20272. From everyday home goods to high-end,
architectural detailing, Forust can create functional parts for
virtually any wood application with a greatly improved
environmental footprint than conventional manufacturing.
Architects, interior and industrial designers, manufacturers and
even consumers can visit www.forust.com to upload and order custom
designed wood pieces, such as:
- Architectural accents, including one-of-a-kind
decorative panels, custom wood inlays and panels, tiles, hardware
and more;
- Luxury interior components in a wide range of finishes
and materials, including rare and exotic grain structures, for
vehicles, yachts and high-end homes;
- Furniture pieces, including cabinetry doors,
chairs, accents, tables and designs with 3D geometry previously
difficult or impossible to manufacture through conventional
woodworking methods; and
- Home goods products ranging from flowerpots, bowls and
picture frames, to textured blocks, bathroom accessories, desk
accessories, sculptures, tiles and more.
An array of consumer home goods pieces designed by Forust and
others in collaboration with talented independent designers and
brands, is now available for purchase at www.forust.com/store.
Among the first designer products available on the Forust webstore
is a collection created by industrial designer and founder of
fuseproject, Yves Béhar. The Vine collection, which includes a
vessel, bowl, basket, and tray, honors the warmth and familiarity
of the wood material with curving, organic forms that extrude from
a singular point and twist up into a repeating pattern.
“As a designer, I use a lot of wood and being able to use a
product made from sawdust and lignin is an amazing resource,” said
Béhar. “The future of design and production really hinges on new
technologies coming on and allowing designers to approach materials
and manufacturing in ways that are sustainable, in ways that are
low carbon footprint, in ways that we are using waste instead of
cutting down more trees or extracting more oil out of the soil.
Design isn’t just something that remains the same all the time.
This new technology allows us to really address some of the
critical problems around the environment and global warming that we
are facing.”
“Applications for Forust’s wood parts are really limitless,”
said Ric Fulop, Founder and CEO of Desktop Metal. “There are many
applications where polymers and plastics are used today where you
can now cost-effectively replace with sustainably manufactured wood
parts – luxurious, high-end components in interiors, consumer
electronics, instruments, aviation, boats, home goods and
eventually in flooring and exterior roofing applications. For the
first time, we can produce beautiful parts with the same durability
and characteristics you would have in traditionally manufactured
wood, but printed using upcycled materials which does not require
cutting down or harvesting trees. With Forust, we have the
opportunity to have a meaningful impact on sustainability, climate
change and waste issues that we as a humanity have brought to the
planet. For each tree saved, we are reducing the carbon footprint
by a metric ton over its lifetime.”
About Forust
Forust™, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Desktop Metal, makes
high-volume additive manufacturing of end-use wood parts possible
with stunning designs that are affordable and sustainable. The
Forust process applies the speed, precision and quality of binder
jet additive manufacturing technology to produce strong,
lightweight wood parts created from wood waste streams such as wood
sawdust and lignin. The mission is to develop responsible material
value chains that are critical to achieving net-zero carbon
emissions and building a sustainable future. Led by industry
veteran and 3D printing pioneer, Andrew Jeffery, co-founder and
CEO, Forust is based in Burlington, Massachusetts. For more
information, visit www.forust.com.
About Desktop Metal
Desktop Metal, Inc., based in Burlington, Massachusetts, is
accelerating the transformation of manufacturing with an expansive
portfolio of 3D printing solutions, from rapid prototyping to mass
production. Founded in 2015 by leaders in advanced manufacturing,
metallurgy, and robotics, the company is addressing the unmet
challenges of speed, cost, and quality to make additive
manufacturing an essential tool for engineers and manufacturers
around the world. Desktop Metal was selected as one of the world’s
30 most promising Technology Pioneers by the World Economic Forum
and named to MIT Technology Review’s list of 50 Smartest Companies.
For more information, visit www.desktopmetal.com.
Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking
statement generally are identified by the words “believe,”
“project,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “intend,”
“strategy,” “future,” “opportunity,” “plan,” “may,” “should,”
“will,” “would,” “will be,” “will continue,” “will likely result,”
and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are
predictions, projections and other statements about future events
that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a
result, are subject to risks, uncertainties. Many factors could
cause actual future events to differ materially from the
forward-looking statements in this document, including but not
limited to the risks and uncertainties set forth in Desktop Metal,
Inc.'s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
These filings identify and address other important risks and
uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ
materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made.
Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking
statements, and Desktop Metal, Inc. assumes no obligation and does
not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements,
whether as a result of new information, future events, or
otherwise.
(1)
Nature “Mapping Tree Density at a Global
Scale” vol. 532, April 14, 2016
(2)
Research and Markets; Global Finished Wood
Products Industry (2020 to 2027)
- Market Trajectory & Analytics
September 16, 2020
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Press Lynda McKinney lyndamckinney@desktopmetal.com
978-224-1282
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