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Silk Gold PLA Filament 1.75 mm 3D Printing Filament 1KG 2.2LBS Spool 3D Printer Material Shine Silky Shiny Metallic PLA Metal CC3D Silk PLA Gold Filament

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 11,037 ratings
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Silk Gold
Brand CC3D
Material Polylactic Acid
Color Silk Gold
Item Weight 1 Kilograms
Item Diameter 1.75 Millimeters

About this item

  • No need polishing, the surface of the prints have a shiny metallic color, just like real gold.
  • Highlight silk pla filament.Made of high quality with American raw materials.
  • Easy to printing,support almost all FDM 3D printers on Market.
  • For better printing effect,Recommended print speed:30-45mm/s.
  • Industrial & Scientific › Additive Manufacturing Products › 3D Printing Supplies › 3D Printing Filament.

Product details

  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.27 x 8.27 x 2.76 inches; 2.2 Pounds
  • Item model number ‏ : ‎ Silk Gold
  • Date First Available ‏ : ‎ March 21, 2017
  • Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ Hangzhou zhuopu new materials technology Co.,LTD
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B06XRPYXP2
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 11,037 ratings

Product Description

  • Brand:CC3D
  • Metallic luster: No need polishing, the surface of the prints is shiny look like real metal.
  • Compatible with almost kinds of FDM 3D printers.
  • Easy to print:Please read the text attached at the end of page about the print setting carefully.
  • Excellent print quality.
  • Silk PLA filament for our store gives your printing a wonderful experience!
  • Suitable for printing artwork.

CC3D SILK PLA FILAMENT

Product Description

  • Silk PLA Filament
  • Premier Material: made of polylactic acid from U.S..
  • N.W: 1KG
  • Diameter: 1.75±0.05mm
  • Vacuum packing
  • Spool Diameter: 7.8" - Spool Height: 2.55" - Spool Hub Hole Diameter: 2.08"

Start Your Artistic Creation Now!

CC3D SILK PLA FILAMENT

Print Settings and tips:

  1. Printing Temperature: 210-220°C
  2. Hot bed Temperature: 40-60°C
  3. First Layer Printing Speed: 20-25 mm / s.
  4. Other Layer Printing Speed: 25mm/s (Outer layer)-40mm/s (Inner layer),the printing speed of Silk PLA is suggested to be about 30mm / s.
  5. Retraction:0-4mm
  6. Retraction Speed:<45mm/s
  7. Clean or change the nozzle before printing is good way to reduce jam if it was used for many times.

Possible problems:

  • Some of 3D printer with Bowden Drive Extruder may have clog problems. The reason is that the softening temperature of silk PLA is lower.
  • The solution method is:
  • 1.Turn off Retraction settings.
  • 2.It is necessary to clean up the filaments blocked in the throat before printing for second time.

Support and After-sales:

  • We have been committed to producing high-quality products and providing customers with a good experience. If there is any quality problem, we will definitely solve the problem until you are satisfied.

Product guides and documents

Looking for specific info?

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
11,037 global ratings

Customers say

Customers like the color of the thermoplastic filament. They mention it has an interesting color and finish. However, some customers have different opinions on the print quality, functionality, filament quality, value for money, and adhesion.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

1,073 customers mention "Color"910 positive163 negative

Customers like the color of the thermoplastic filament. They mention it has an interesting color and finish, turning out beautiful prints without much work. Some appreciate the glossy green and say it looks metallic.

"...It looks perfect and there are 0 flaws in the print...." Read more

"Very good quality filament. No issues while printing and everything turned out beautiful." Read more

"...are the best gold and silver silks I've found, that is they look the most realistic...." Read more

"I love this filament. It makes for beautiful luxurious looking prints. I have purchased it multiple times and it never fails." Read more

745 customers mention "Print quality"511 positive234 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the print quality of thermoplastic filament. Some mention it works well and prints easily, while others say it doesn't print well and is difficult to print on than ordinary PLA.

"...As for quality. No complaints. Printed fine. Wound neatly. I typically bump the nozzle and bed temp for silk...." Read more

"...It printed pretty good but then a week into printing the filament had a total fail on me as it snapped in my bowden tube and hotend...." Read more

"...interacts with the texture of the printed surface, it's hard to see the layer lines on flat vertical or curvy/"organic" surfaces..." Read more

"Very good quality filament. No issues while printing and everything turned out beautiful." Read more

461 customers mention "Functionality"316 positive145 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the functionality of the thermoplastic filament. Some mention it works well, while others say it doesn't come out perfect and stops adhering to itself.

"...It looks perfect and there are 0 flaws in the print. The dryer is awesome because it functions as a spool holder as well so you can print 50-55C..." Read more

"...For that reason, this stuff really performs best when dried...." Read more

"...print... one section will be prefect while a few layers up it goes very bad and stops adhering to itself while being printed... Maybe the company..." Read more

"...It’s durable, reliable, and delivers consistently great results...." Read more

338 customers mention "Filament quality"170 positive168 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the quality of the thermoplastic filament. Some mention it's a good filament, while others say it consistently clogs after just a few minutes of printing.

"...Other than the color issue, this is a pretty decent filament...." Read more

"...The filament quality itself is inconsistent even during a single print... one section will be prefect while a few layers up it goes very bad and..." Read more

"...Second - Filament is nice and very neat and tidy on the spool. No tangles yet.Third - Settings - (Printer Prusa MK3S+) nozzle 215 bed 60...." Read more

"...Maybe four hours in, the filament developed a clog and I printed a birds nest the next 6 hours until I got back to it...." Read more

283 customers mention "Value for money"186 positive97 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the value for money of thermoplastic filament. Some mention it's of good quality, stable, and delivers real value. Others say it's not cheap and not worth $30 a roll.

"...It looks perfect and there are 0 flaws in the print...." Read more

"Very good quality filament. No issues while printing and everything turned out beautiful." Read more

"...Filament prints great, the colors are nice but way way too much gold. And zero transition from colors" Read more

"...This stuff is inexpensive ($19.99/kg at the moment), made in China, and people were talking it up, and everyone knows how THAT usually goes -- "if..." Read more

277 customers mention "Adhesion"119 positive158 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the adhesion of the thermoplastic filament. Some mention it stays on the bed, while others say it has poor adhesion when printing directly on the bed.

"...It still has bed and layer adhesion problems that have resulted in Spaghetti monsters several times, even when printing the simplest of objects..." Read more

"...Try going a little slower if you have issues. Layer adhesion is better than other brands I've tried, but it's still a weak point...." Read more

"...I have a textured PEI bed on Bambu Lab P1S, this stuff failed to adhere to the bed on my first two prints with it...." Read more

"...I found 220 was about right for this, and had no adhesion issues at 60 on the bed.----..." Read more

It's a good filament, and you'll be happy with it, as long as you pay attention when you dial it in.
5 out of 5 stars
It's a good filament, and you'll be happy with it, as long as you pay attention when you dial it in.
I had been wanting to try one of these mega-gold filaments for a while, so I decided to google around looking for "the best". Everyone has their own idea of what that means of course, but I had to start *somewhere*, and this stuff did come with some decent recommendations, so I figured "what the hell, it's worth a shot", and bought a spool.I've never printed with "silky" filament before, let alone this brand, so it's new territory for me. This stuff is inexpensive ($19.99/kg at the moment), made in China, and people were talking it up, and everyone knows how THAT usually goes -- "if sounds too good to be true, it probably is". I figured if it doesn't stack-up, it won't be a huge loss.At first, I had jamming problems, intermittent starved lines, brittleness, bad overhangs, ooze... the works. So, I didn't get a very good first impression of it. I figured, well, if I can't get this to print nicely, maybe I can just get it going barely well enough to use it for things where it's okay for the part to look ugly or where the color won't matter.But... I didn't want to settle for that, and kept poking at my settings until I finally got it figured out. Over the course of about 20 meters' worth of filament printing calibration objects, I got it dialed-in decently, and all those issues just... went away. Afterward, I printed a couple of small non-calibration items, then put the spool away for the time being. I still have some fine-tuning to do before printing anything big or important, but that's to be expected when playing around with a new filament, and it was already past time to shut things down for the night.So, yeah... that first impression was wrong. I mean, dead, fracking wrong! This really is a good product. As I wrote in the headline, the photos I saw didn't lie, and I'm certain mine don't either. It really does look as nice as the claims.One of the defining properties of this stuff: between the overall glossy/shiny/silky appearance and the way light interacts with the texture of the printed surface, it's hard to see the layer lines on flat vertical or curvy/"organic" surfaces (like the side of a cube, or the hull of a Benchy), making prints look a lot smoother than normal. At least, at 0.2mm layer height, anyways. Of course, mechanically, the layer lines are no different from any other plastic. This effect doesn't hide the "terraced terrain" look of gently-sloping top/bottom surfaces (like the Benchy's gunwale or cabin roof), but as with any other filament, you can mitigate that to some degree by using a finer layer height where it's needed, or maybe with that non-planar slicing method that's making the rounds.This leads to another nice quality: it's slick to the touch, even coming from my old printer (which doesn't produce the smoothest of surfaces to begin with). In fact, it almost feels "oily", compared to my other filaments. Of course, it's probably just as dry as any other plastic. It's simply *that* smooth right out of the hotend. I now wonder what vapor smoothing would do to it (and what solvent one would need for this product, for that matter).One thing that surprised me is that this stuff wants (in fact, demands) a lot less retract than any of the other filaments I use. As in, they all need around 2 mm of retraction length, while this gold does great with just 0.5 mm). I'm certain that too much retract was what led to jamming, starved lines, and ooze (paradoxically).Now, on the questionable side, this filament does have a LOT of die swell. For those who don't know, this is the effect where extruding into free air too fast (for a given temperature) will cause the extruded plastic to distort, shrinking lengthwise while also getting fatter, not unlike a muscle contracting. Or, as someone else described it, "like a hanging worm reacting to being touched".This isn't too much of a problem during normal printing, though, and can be beneficial in one case: if you anchor a line of hot plastic to something, stretch it across open air, and anchor the far end to something else, then let it cool, the filament's tendency to shrink lengthwise will cause it to pull itself taut between those anchor points (at least, with reasonably thin lines).Of course, we all know that this is how bridging works in 3d printing, and this behavior leads to *great* bridges with very little droop, but it has the negative side effect of making partial overhangs less than ideal, as they'll want to curl up if printed too fast. This is particularly apparent on parts with a small horizontal cross-section, which lead to short layer times, such as the 30-85° overhang test pictured above. The behavior of bridges and overhangs is comparable to ABS, but less severe, and like that material, these issues can be dealt with with appropriate settings or using things like a dwell tower or just adding more parts to the plate, so that there's more to print at heights where the problematic overhangs show up.And...well... it doesn't smell sweet when printing, like PLA normally does. Gotta have that delicious smell of waffles. :-)Also bear in mind, this is a standard-size 1kg spool -- the photo attached to this Amazon listing makes it look bigger than reality.## End of review ##The following settings were used to print most of the items seen in the photos attached to this review (ignore the object on the far left, it's a bad print and is NOT representative):* Hotend: 195°C (precisely calibrated)* Bed: 65°C* Diameter: 1.73 mm* Flow: 94%* Geometry: 0.2 mm layer height, 0.4 mm line width* Speeds: I use Slic3r's autospeed mode, with a 5 mm³/s volumetric flow rate target, which works out to around 70 mm/s on most print moves. Travels at 300 mm/s, and retract and unretract speeds are both set to 40 mm/s. 1000-1500 mm/s² acceleration. X/Y jerk is set to 20.* Cooling: fan at 85% on print moves, 100% on bridges ( I usually run it flat-out 100% at all times on other PLA's, and PETG typically gets 15 to 25% on print moves and 50 to 100% on bridges, depending on color).The printer is just an old acrylic Prusa i3 MK1 clone that I've modded, upgraded, and just generally tinkered with over the years. It is equipped with a genuine RPW-Ultra all-metal hotend, with 12v/40W heater and 0.4 mm nozzle, a direct-feed, geared extruder of my own design, and Printbite-covered glass for the print surface. Layer cooling is provided by a 5015 blower, through a duct that aims the airflow at both the left and right sides of the nozzle. The whole kit is controlled by a BigTreeTech SKR v1.3 loaded-up with TMC2208 driver modules, and running Marlin (bugfix-2.0.x branch).
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Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2024
Color: Silk RainbowVerified Purchase
This review is for the rainbow gradient silk pla.
This rainbow is a bit different than others. It tends to run darker colors and more gold tones. Basically no red, green, or pinks. Two of the gold tones print very similar even though they look very different on the spool. This makes it come out as long stretches of gold (see the deep sea diver model pic). If you like gold, like I do, this isn't really an issue. You can expect most of your prints to include at least some gold coloring. This spool looks like it has so many colors but really you just get 3 main colors and then very gradual transitions that look smooth.:: A rich sapphire blue, a burgundy-ish copper, and gold. Of which there are multiple slightly different gold tones varying from yellow, orange, a coffee, and copper ish.

The sool colors can be deceiving. It's surprising seeing what looks like a light eggplant color filament print as a distinct gold color. But you will see this happening with these colors. I'm not sure why the printed colors change so much from the way the color looks on the roll. But it does.

I really like the colors but be aware you will find a lot of gold in the mix compared to the blue and purple. And that it will be tricky to predict what the filament will look like when printed.

As for quality. No complaints. Printed fine. Wound neatly. I typically bump the nozzle and bed temp for silk. these were all printed at 205c and 70c bed. I sometimes get bed adhesion problems if I use 60c. So if you have such issues, try bumping the bed temp. And make sure bed is clean.
Customer image
5.0 out of 5 stars Rainbow gradient silk (dark)
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2024
This review is for the rainbow gradient silk pla.
This rainbow is a bit different than others. It tends to run darker colors and more gold tones. Basically no red, green, or pinks. Two of the gold tones print very similar even though they look very different on the spool. This makes it come out as long stretches of gold (see the deep sea diver model pic). If you like gold, like I do, this isn't really an issue. You can expect most of your prints to include at least some gold coloring. This spool looks like it has so many colors but really you just get 3 main colors and then very gradual transitions that look smooth.:: A rich sapphire blue, a burgundy-ish copper, and gold. Of which there are multiple slightly different gold tones varying from yellow, orange, a coffee, and copper ish.

The sool colors can be deceiving. It's surprising seeing what looks like a light eggplant color filament print as a distinct gold color. But you will see this happening with these colors. I'm not sure why the printed colors change so much from the way the color looks on the roll. But it does.

I really like the colors but be aware you will find a lot of gold in the mix compared to the blue and purple. And that it will be tricky to predict what the filament will look like when printed.

As for quality. No complaints. Printed fine. Wound neatly. I typically bump the nozzle and bed temp for silk. these were all printed at 205c and 70c bed. I sometimes get bed adhesion problems if I use 60c. So if you have such issues, try bumping the bed temp. And make sure bed is clean.
Images in this review
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3 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2023
Color: Silk GoldVerified Purchase
So at first I used the most liked review comment cura settings of 195C nozzle, 65C heated bed, and 94% flow rate. It printed pretty good but then a week into printing the filament had a total fail on me as it snapped in my bowden tube and hotend. I had to take apart the nozzle and tube, it wasn't hard but this was defintely a clear sign of moisture in my filament.

For those of you new to 3d printing, many filament love to absorb the moisuture in the air which will directly negatively impact your prints from poor adhesion, prints, or worse...a total failure.

I got a really nice filament dryer and my print has come out absolutely amazing. It looks perfect and there are 0 flaws in the print. The dryer is awesome because it functions as a spool holder as well so you can print 50-55C heated filament for butter smooth PLA.

Get yourself a filament dryer or you can also try the ghetto method as well by putting this filament in the oven for 4-6 hours at 50C. But obviously this has a huge flaw as you are going to leave a chemical smell in the oven you cook your food in... so drop 50-60 dollars and get a proper filament dryer.
4 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2024
Color: Silk SilverVerified Purchase
Very good quality filament. No issues while printing and everything turned out beautiful.
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2024
Color: Silk GoldVerified Purchase
These are the best gold and silver silks I've found, that is they look the most realistic. They foam quite a bit which is normal for silk, but it leads me to believe the TPU content is high. For that reason, this stuff really performs best when dried. in fact, it will start to degrade after just 10-20 hours of printing, so I print straight from the dryer. Also, I have had rolls of gold that are less metallic (more like other brands) while I have had many that look exceptionally like real gold. I wish the consistency was better. Printability is just fine on my Prusa Mk3, MK4 and Bambu X1c as long as it's dry. Try going a little slower if you have issues. Layer adhesion is better than other brands I've tried, but it's still a weak point. Orient your print so that layers are perpendicular to the axis you most require strength on. That said, this is for aesthetic parts, not functional ones, so it's more than adequate. Great stuff once you get used to the quirks. I've had parts pass for real metal until handled.
4 people found this helpful
Report
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2024
Color: Silk GoldVerified Purchase
I love this filament. It makes for beautiful luxurious looking prints. I have purchased it multiple times and it never fails.
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2019
Color: Silk GoldVerified Purchase
I had been wanting to try one of these mega-gold filaments for a while, so I decided to google around looking for "the best". Everyone has their own idea of what that means of course, but I had to start *somewhere*, and this stuff did come with some decent recommendations, so I figured "what the hell, it's worth a shot", and bought a spool.

I've never printed with "silky" filament before, let alone this brand, so it's new territory for me. This stuff is inexpensive ($19.99/kg at the moment), made in China, and people were talking it up, and everyone knows how THAT usually goes -- "if sounds too good to be true, it probably is". I figured if it doesn't stack-up, it won't be a huge loss.

At first, I had jamming problems, intermittent starved lines, brittleness, bad overhangs, ooze... the works. So, I didn't get a very good first impression of it. I figured, well, if I can't get this to print nicely, maybe I can just get it going barely well enough to use it for things where it's okay for the part to look ugly or where the color won't matter.

But... I didn't want to settle for that, and kept poking at my settings until I finally got it figured out. Over the course of about 20 meters' worth of filament printing calibration objects, I got it dialed-in decently, and all those issues just... went away. Afterward, I printed a couple of small non-calibration items, then put the spool away for the time being. I still have some fine-tuning to do before printing anything big or important, but that's to be expected when playing around with a new filament, and it was already past time to shut things down for the night.

So, yeah... that first impression was wrong. I mean, dead, fracking wrong! This really is a good product. As I wrote in the headline, the photos I saw didn't lie, and I'm certain mine don't either. It really does look as nice as the claims.

One of the defining properties of this stuff: between the overall glossy/shiny/silky appearance and the way light interacts with the texture of the printed surface, it's hard to see the layer lines on flat vertical or curvy/"organic" surfaces (like the side of a cube, or the hull of a Benchy), making prints look a lot smoother than normal. At least, at 0.2mm layer height, anyways. Of course, mechanically, the layer lines are no different from any other plastic. This effect doesn't hide the "terraced terrain" look of gently-sloping top/bottom surfaces (like the Benchy's gunwale or cabin roof), but as with any other filament, you can mitigate that to some degree by using a finer layer height where it's needed, or maybe with that non-planar slicing method that's making the rounds.

This leads to another nice quality: it's slick to the touch, even coming from my old printer (which doesn't produce the smoothest of surfaces to begin with). In fact, it almost feels "oily", compared to my other filaments. Of course, it's probably just as dry as any other plastic. It's simply *that* smooth right out of the hotend. I now wonder what vapor smoothing would do to it (and what solvent one would need for this product, for that matter).

One thing that surprised me is that this stuff wants (in fact, demands) a lot less retract than any of the other filaments I use. As in, they all need around 2 mm of retraction length, while this gold does great with just 0.5 mm). I'm certain that too much retract was what led to jamming, starved lines, and ooze (paradoxically).

Now, on the questionable side, this filament does have a LOT of die swell. For those who don't know, this is the effect where extruding into free air too fast (for a given temperature) will cause the extruded plastic to distort, shrinking lengthwise while also getting fatter, not unlike a muscle contracting. Or, as someone else described it, "like a hanging worm reacting to being touched".

This isn't too much of a problem during normal printing, though, and can be beneficial in one case: if you anchor a line of hot plastic to something, stretch it across open air, and anchor the far end to something else, then let it cool, the filament's tendency to shrink lengthwise will cause it to pull itself taut between those anchor points (at least, with reasonably thin lines).

Of course, we all know that this is how bridging works in 3d printing, and this behavior leads to *great* bridges with very little droop, but it has the negative side effect of making partial overhangs less than ideal, as they'll want to curl up if printed too fast. This is particularly apparent on parts with a small horizontal cross-section, which lead to short layer times, such as the 30-85° overhang test pictured above. The behavior of bridges and overhangs is comparable to ABS, but less severe, and like that material, these issues can be dealt with with appropriate settings or using things like a dwell tower or just adding more parts to the plate, so that there's more to print at heights where the problematic overhangs show up.

And...well... it doesn't smell sweet when printing, like PLA normally does. Gotta have that delicious smell of waffles. :-)

Also bear in mind, this is a standard-size 1kg spool -- the photo attached to this Amazon listing makes it look bigger than reality.

## End of review ##

The following settings were used to print most of the items seen in the photos attached to this review (ignore the object on the far left, it's a bad print and is NOT representative):

* Hotend: 195°C (precisely calibrated)
* Bed: 65°C
* Diameter: 1.73 mm
* Flow: 94%
* Geometry: 0.2 mm layer height, 0.4 mm line width
* Speeds: I use Slic3r's autospeed mode, with a 5 mm³/s volumetric flow rate target, which works out to around 70 mm/s on most print moves. Travels at 300 mm/s, and retract and unretract speeds are both set to 40 mm/s. 1000-1500 mm/s² acceleration. X/Y jerk is set to 20.
* Cooling: fan at 85% on print moves, 100% on bridges ( I usually run it flat-out 100% at all times on other PLA's, and PETG typically gets 15 to 25% on print moves and 50 to 100% on bridges, depending on color).

The printer is just an old acrylic Prusa i3 MK1 clone that I've modded, upgraded, and just generally tinkered with over the years. It is equipped with a genuine RPW-Ultra all-metal hotend, with 12v/40W heater and 0.4 mm nozzle, a direct-feed, geared extruder of my own design, and Printbite-covered glass for the print surface. Layer cooling is provided by a 5015 blower, through a duct that aims the airflow at both the left and right sides of the nozzle. The whole kit is controlled by a BigTreeTech SKR v1.3 loaded-up with TMC2208 driver modules, and running Marlin (bugfix-2.0.x branch).
Customer image
5.0 out of 5 stars It's a good filament, and you'll be happy with it, as long as you pay attention when you dial it in.
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2019
I had been wanting to try one of these mega-gold filaments for a while, so I decided to google around looking for "the best". Everyone has their own idea of what that means of course, but I had to start *somewhere*, and this stuff did come with some decent recommendations, so I figured "what the hell, it's worth a shot", and bought a spool.

I've never printed with "silky" filament before, let alone this brand, so it's new territory for me. This stuff is inexpensive ($19.99/kg at the moment), made in China, and people were talking it up, and everyone knows how THAT usually goes -- "if sounds too good to be true, it probably is". I figured if it doesn't stack-up, it won't be a huge loss.

At first, I had jamming problems, intermittent starved lines, brittleness, bad overhangs, ooze... the works. So, I didn't get a very good first impression of it. I figured, well, if I can't get this to print nicely, maybe I can just get it going barely well enough to use it for things where it's okay for the part to look ugly or where the color won't matter.

But... I didn't want to settle for that, and kept poking at my settings until I finally got it figured out. Over the course of about 20 meters' worth of filament printing calibration objects, I got it dialed-in decently, and all those issues just... went away. Afterward, I printed a couple of small non-calibration items, then put the spool away for the time being. I still have some fine-tuning to do before printing anything big or important, but that's to be expected when playing around with a new filament, and it was already past time to shut things down for the night.

So, yeah... that first impression was wrong. I mean, dead, fracking wrong! This really is a good product. As I wrote in the headline, the photos I saw didn't lie, and I'm certain mine don't either. It really does look as nice as the claims.

One of the defining properties of this stuff: between the overall glossy/shiny/silky appearance and the way light interacts with the texture of the printed surface, it's hard to see the layer lines on flat vertical or curvy/"organic" surfaces (like the side of a cube, or the hull of a Benchy), making prints look a lot smoother than normal. At least, at 0.2mm layer height, anyways. Of course, mechanically, the layer lines are no different from any other plastic. This effect doesn't hide the "terraced terrain" look of gently-sloping top/bottom surfaces (like the Benchy's gunwale or cabin roof), but as with any other filament, you can mitigate that to some degree by using a finer layer height where it's needed, or maybe with that non-planar slicing method that's making the rounds.

This leads to another nice quality: it's slick to the touch, even coming from my old printer (which doesn't produce the smoothest of surfaces to begin with). In fact, it almost feels "oily", compared to my other filaments. Of course, it's probably just as dry as any other plastic. It's simply *that* smooth right out of the hotend. I now wonder what vapor smoothing would do to it (and what solvent one would need for this product, for that matter).

One thing that surprised me is that this stuff wants (in fact, demands) a lot less retract than any of the other filaments I use. As in, they all need around 2 mm of retraction length, while this gold does great with just 0.5 mm). I'm certain that too much retract was what led to jamming, starved lines, and ooze (paradoxically).

Now, on the questionable side, this filament does have a LOT of die swell. For those who don't know, this is the effect where extruding into free air too fast (for a given temperature) will cause the extruded plastic to distort, shrinking lengthwise while also getting fatter, not unlike a muscle contracting. Or, as someone else described it, "like a hanging worm reacting to being touched".

This isn't too much of a problem during normal printing, though, and can be beneficial in one case: if you anchor a line of hot plastic to something, stretch it across open air, and anchor the far end to something else, then let it cool, the filament's tendency to shrink lengthwise will cause it to pull itself taut between those anchor points (at least, with reasonably thin lines).

Of course, we all know that this is how bridging works in 3d printing, and this behavior leads to *great* bridges with very little droop, but it has the negative side effect of making partial overhangs less than ideal, as they'll want to curl up if printed too fast. This is particularly apparent on parts with a small horizontal cross-section, which lead to short layer times, such as the 30-85° overhang test pictured above. The behavior of bridges and overhangs is comparable to ABS, but less severe, and like that material, these issues can be dealt with with appropriate settings or using things like a dwell tower or just adding more parts to the plate, so that there's more to print at heights where the problematic overhangs show up.

And...well... it doesn't smell sweet when printing, like PLA normally does. Gotta have that delicious smell of waffles. :-)

Also bear in mind, this is a standard-size 1kg spool -- the photo attached to this Amazon listing makes it look bigger than reality.

## End of review ##

The following settings were used to print most of the items seen in the photos attached to this review (ignore the object on the far left, it's a bad print and is NOT representative):

* Hotend: 195°C (precisely calibrated)
* Bed: 65°C
* Diameter: 1.73 mm
* Flow: 94%
* Geometry: 0.2 mm layer height, 0.4 mm line width
* Speeds: I use Slic3r's autospeed mode, with a 5 mm³/s volumetric flow rate target, which works out to around 70 mm/s on most print moves. Travels at 300 mm/s, and retract and unretract speeds are both set to 40 mm/s. 1000-1500 mm/s² acceleration. X/Y jerk is set to 20.
* Cooling: fan at 85% on print moves, 100% on bridges ( I usually run it flat-out 100% at all times on other PLA's, and PETG typically gets 15 to 25% on print moves and 50 to 100% on bridges, depending on color).

The printer is just an old acrylic Prusa i3 MK1 clone that I've modded, upgraded, and just generally tinkered with over the years. It is equipped with a genuine RPW-Ultra all-metal hotend, with 12v/40W heater and 0.4 mm nozzle, a direct-feed, geared extruder of my own design, and Printbite-covered glass for the print surface. Layer cooling is provided by a 5015 blower, through a duct that aims the airflow at both the left and right sides of the nozzle. The whole kit is controlled by a BigTreeTech SKR v1.3 loaded-up with TMC2208 driver modules, and running Marlin (bugfix-2.0.x branch).
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