Freakish Prints — An Entertaining Website Chronicling When 3D Prints Go Wrong

Petr Vagner

We’ve all done it before–left the room while a 3D printing project was underway, only to return to find that things didn’t go the way we had planned. In the event that you did not almost burn your house down, like one unfortunate individual did last year, sometimes what you find, although disappointing, may just be a work of art in itself. Even if it’s not a work of art, I’m sure it made someone chuckle a bit. After all, some of the failed 3D prints I have seen are just plain silly, or perhaps even a bit freakish, as one Czech web designer by the name of Petr Vagner calls them in a new website, FreakishPrints.com

“I made a stupid website that might be entertaining about when not everything goes right,” explained Vagner to 3DPrint.com.

Freakish Prints is currently filled with multiple photos and stories of Vagner’s failed 3D prints that he encountered while working at the Prague-based Microlab, an open digital fabrication studio where one can learn how to use 3D printers, design software and electronics to make (almost) anything they want.

“This is my collection of freakish prints that were created by accident and can never be recreated like this ever again. Ever,” explained Vagner. “And that is fascinating. Because accidents happen randomly and nature is more powerful than all of us.”

Below you will find a few of the ‘freakish prints’ that Vagner came upon at the lab over the last several months:

Stone:

Appearing similar to a lava run off, according to Vagner, this gem of a failure occurred after hours of unintended print time. Vagner called this piece a “black tar gem.”

Universe:

This one is my personal favorites, simply because it’s reminiscent of something you actually would see in an art gallery. The real culprit here was a lack of a sticky enough print surface. The printer repeatedly dislodged the filament from the build platform, creating something that Vagner calls ‘Universe’. After 24 hours of unattended printing, this is what resulted: “So the whole day and night the filament was creating a small universe from the nozzle,” Vagner described.

Pink:

While the name is self explanatory, the intention of this print obviously is not. Originally intended to be an air intake filter for a racing company, a failure to stick to the glass build plate at 55 degrees Celsius resulted in what appears to be a shredded mess. Beauty, or garbage? You decide!
There are several other failed prints on the website, and Vagner plans to continue this project, as new failures are a certainty in this arena. What beautiful failures will he come across next? Stay tuned to Freakish Prints to find out.

Have you had any freakish failures yourself lately? Let us know and post some pictures of them in the Freakish Prints forum thread on 3DPB.com.