How will technology such as 3D printing shape the future of wood applications?
The Wood Guide · Reference
ReferenceTechnology and the future of wood
3D printing with wood exists, but that is not where the real change lies. It comes from machines that process existing wood more precisely.
- CNC is already everywhere
- Printing filament is wood fibre in plastic
- CLT is the real breakthrough
The most striking is not the most useful
The most striking technology gets the most attention. The most useful has been quietly standing in every joinery workshop for years.
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What is really happening
The most eye-catching technology gets the most attention. The most useful technology has been quietly standing in every joinery workshop for years.
3D printing with wood exists, but not the way people imagine it. What gets printed is a plastic filament with wood fibre in it — usually between twenty and forty per cent wood. It smells like wood and sands like wood, but it is a composite. So a printed object is not a wooden object.
What does change every day is the precision with which existing wood is worked. CNC machines mill joints that would take hours by hand in minutes, with a tolerance of tenths of a millimetre. That makes traditional joints economically viable again — exactly the opposite of what people expect from automation.
And the biggest change in construction comes from laminated products: cross-laminated timber, better known as CLT. Solid timber panels of cross-bonded layers, used to put up buildings of ten storeys and more. That is not a vision of the future but standing architecture.
A timber load-bearing structure is lighter than concrete, is prefabricated in a factory and goes up faster on site. And the building stores carbon instead of emitting it during production. Together, that explains its rise better than any single technology.
- 3D printing filament with wood
- 20 to 40 per cent wood fibre in plastic
- CNC milling
- standard in industry for decades
- CLT
- cross-bonded solid timber panels
- Tallest timber buildings
- more than ten storeys
- Robot arms
- emerging in prefabrication and research
- Transparent wood
- laboratory stage
- What stays
- wood still moves, however you work it
To be fair: much of what you read about wood innovation is not yet a product. Transparent wood, nanocoatings and self-healing surfaces regularly make the news, but you cannot lay a deck or make a window with them today. Be critical of articles that name no supplier or price — usually that is because there is none.
What already works today
CNC milling
A computer-controlled router makes joints, recesses and curved shapes with a precision that is almost impossible to achieve by hand. The result: complex traditional joints have become affordable again.
Cross-laminated timber (CLT)
Solid panels of cross-bonded layers. Strong in both directions, dimensionally stable, and prefabricated to size including openings for windows and services.
Glued laminated beams (glulam)
Beams of glued lamellas that can handle large spans and can even be made curved — unaffordable in solid wood.
Digital prefabrication
Walls and roofs are made in the factory and assembled on site in a few days. Less weather risk, less waste, shorter build time.
Modified wood
Thermally modified, acetylated and furfurylated wood brings softwood up to the durability level of tropical hardwood. This is real technology you can buy.
Scanning and grading
Machines that scan boards for knots and cracks and automatically sort them into strength classes — the basis for reliable structural timber.
What 3D printing with wood is and is not
Wood fibre in plastic
Filament with 20 to 40 per cent wood fibre, usually on a PLA base.
- Looks and smells like wood
- Can be sanded and stained
- Ideal for prototypes and small shapes
- Free-form shapes you cannot mill
Not solid wood
The properties are those of the plastic, not of wood.
- Not as strong as solid wood
- No grain, no real wood structure
- Wears faster when printing: a harder nozzle is needed
- Not suitable for structural work
More interesting than printing with wood is printing for wood: moulds, templates and saw guides you print yourself that make your woodworking more precise. That is the most practical use of a 3D printer in a woodworking shop today.
What is still in the laboratory
| Development | What it promises | Current status |
|---|---|---|
| Transparent wood | translucent material with a wood structure | laboratory; no commercial application |
| Nanocoatings | microscopically thin protective layer | research; hardly available for building timber |
| Self-healing finishes | scratches that close by themselves | mainly tested in other sectors |
| Robotic assembly on site | robots that build timber structures on location | pilot projects and research |
| Wood-fibre composites for construction | stronger material from residual streams | in development, partly on the market |
| Digital twins of buildings | every component digitally traceable | gaining ground in large projects |
Wood remains a natural product that shrinks and swells with the humidity of the air, that is stronger along the grain than across it, and that rots if it stays wet for long. No technology changes that — the best innovations take it into account.
Frequently asked questions about technology and wood
Can you really 3D print with wood?
With filament containing 20 to 40 per cent wood fibre on a plastic base. It looks and smells like wood, but it is a composite and not as strong as solid wood.
What is CLT?
Cross-laminated timber: solid panels of cross-bonded layers of wood. Strong in both directions, and the reason there are now timber buildings of ten storeys and more.
Does CNC make the craftsman redundant?
On the contrary. CNC makes complex traditional joints affordable again; the knowledge of which joint belongs where still comes from people.
Does transparent wood exist?
In the laboratory, yes, by removing the lignin and replacing it with a transparent resin. It is not commercially available.
Why is building with wood on the rise again?
Lighter than concrete, faster to assemble thanks to prefabrication, and the building stores carbon instead of emitting it during production.
What is the most useful technology for a hobbyist?
A 3D printer that makes moulds, templates and saw guides. They make your woodworking more precise straight away — more so than printing with wood filament.
Back to the material
What wood does and why is worked out species by species in The Wood Guide.
Have a question about your project? Just ask — we're happy to help.
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: CNC router cutting a shape out of a board, layer by layer — Lucascu, CC BY 4.0 · Pinus — Aleksandr Rain (Райн Александр Дмитриевич), CC BY-SA 4.0 · Helsinki, Finland — Aarni Salomaa, CC BY 4.0
The Wood Guide
More in Understanding wood
- Laminated timber in construction
- Wood as a building material and the environment
- Wood in modern architecture
- The characteristics of wood
- How wood moves
- Durability classes of wood
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