For a woodworking project which I’ll soon talk about, I had to make a first print in flexible PLA from the PolyFlex brand.

A router is very handy to make mortise assemblies. Even more when you have a lot of them to make (72 in my case), and a few time to allow. But it smothers rapidly without dust collection, by leaving a kind of mashed wood in the cut.

Festool sells adapters, but I didn’t had a look at the prices, and I assume they only do so for their brand’s vacuum cleaners. But I had a spool of PolyFlex at hand, that I still never used except to print printer test models.

The result, as you can see on the picture, looks totally like it would with a classic PLA filament. Except that the part looks like there is  a spider web inside. PolyFlex makes strings, a lot of strings. That said, they come off very easily by hand. The exit string, on the other hand, has to be cut out with pliers.

The PolyFlex‘s texture allows to force-fit the tips, to tightly follow it’s shape, and to stay flexible. With the vacuum cleaner turned on, and openings obstructed by hand, it doesn’t collapse. I imagined making a kind of strengthening cage of classic PLA to put in it, but it definitely won’t be necessary.