Working With Polyurethane Foam

Within the O&P community 3D printing has generated a lot of interest lately. With exciting design possibilities, greater availability, and scanner portability, digital workflow has definitely arrived. While interest in printing is at an all-time high, I believe that the workhorse of computer-aided manufacturing is still carving polyurethane foam positive models for fabrication. Full disclosure: I work for BioSculptor Corporation, and we manufacture polyurethane foam blocks. To get further confirmation about the continued popularity of carving polyurethane, I checked with Rick Noel, director of PVA Med, maker of both carvers and printers.

Noel tells me that he sells more printers than carvers, but he doesn’t see interest in carvers going away. “Many people still need to terminate on a positive model they can use as a fabrication mold, and I don’t think carbon fiber is going away anytime soon.”