Thousands of inkjet nozzles simultaneously jet millions of ultrafine drops to create unique Christmas tree decoration, pointing to further uses of the technology in the car

Christmas might typically be a time for long-held traditions but in 2020, engineers, designers and elves at CALLUM have looked to the future and created a tree decoration in zirconia ceramic with the latest 3D printing technology from Israeli firm XJet.

Foregoing gold, frankincense and myrrh, CALLUM specified zirconia to create a ‘speed form’ bauble of its Aston Martin CALLUM Vanquish 25 by R-Reforged. The pioneering process, which hits temperatures of 1250° Celsius during the sintering stage, uses multiple inkjet printing heads with thousands of tiny nozzles to simultaneously jet millions of ultrafine drops of both build and support materials in ultrathin layers.

This is the first time that XJet has used its zirconia 3D printing process to create a Christmas decoration. It is typically used for printing a variety of components for automotive, medical devices, electronics and end user parts in a variety of applications. Unlike other ceramic additive manufacturing methods, XJet offers complete real freedom of design thanks to its two-material direct inkjet printing of nano particles of ceramics, suspended in liquid, enabling designers to create forms and geometries that were previously impossible.

“Creating this Vanquish taught us a lot about the design opportunities that 3D printed ceramics bring to future projects, both in automotive but also other design commissions we are developing,” says CALLUM’s David Fairbairn. “It’s the advent of a new generation of materials.”