One of the many benefits of using additive manufacturing, commonly referred to as 3D printing, is that it offers the opportunity for mass customization. Mass customization is the ability to produce personalized products that meet customer specified needs, at or near mass production pricing.
Major limiting factors in bringing mass customized products to market are the expensive tooling required to produce these parts and the large minimum order quantities required to make tooling investment economical. Fathom’s drive to innovate change rejects these obstacles. Welcome to Additive Manufacturing (AM).
Additive manufacturing produces anything from single prototypes to production parts without the need for expensive tooling. Due to the layer-based nature of the processes, additive manufacturing allows the printing of multiples of the same part, or multiple variations, at the same time. In product development, this reduces time to market by shortening the prototyping cycle. In production, additive manufacturing enables one to print customized products specifically tailored to an individual.
Métier Vélo, which translates to “craft bicycle” or “professional bicycle”, is a custom bicycle design and fabrication shop based out of Salt Lake City, Utah that was looking for a way to create prototype models of custom bike lugs and dropouts.
Producing these parts in Titanium Ti-6Al-V4 (Ti64) additively allowed Métier Vélo to build bikes designed specifically for the individual fit of each rider; meaning no two Métier Vélo bicycles are the same.
Metal additive manufacturing produces part geometries not possible through subtractive or cast methods. Métier Vélo’s lugs are completely hollow featuring complex internal geometries, internal cable routing, and custom mounts. For easy repair the lugs and dropouts can be un-bonded from their carbon fiber tubes if the tubes become damaged, not to mention they look amazing!
