3D Printer Horse Tack... Will it happen?

[Guilherme]

Thank you for the explanation of the various types.

If you are making a “low stress” tack items, like a crop or set of coat straps, you have one class of item. But if you’re talking about girths, billets, reins, etc. then you another very different class of item. What current method, if any, would work with materials that will experience significant stress as a matter of routine? Can they be produced more efficiently by machine than by just tanning hides?

As to saddle fit, that’s an art. Sometimes even using the word “fit” can lead folks astray into thinking of “fit” as in the fitting of shoes or pants or other normal items of clothing. In reality the saddle “accommodates” the back and is designed such that it does not unreasonably interfere with movement, and maybe even helps make it more efficient. Our resident Saddle Fitter probably has better information than I do on the subject!!!

At the end of the day I don’t see substituting 3D printing technology as being more than an incremental change to presently available strategies re fit. I do see it has having some capacity for improving manufacture of some tack items, particularly saddle parts like trees. But, again, just how much this will advance true utility over present methods is probably an item for discussion.

G.

[Xanthoria]

I don’t believe there is currently a 3D printed material that replicates leather sufficiently to make custom tall boots, which are a luxury item of specific quality, in sufficient quality. However, custom fit items are a great application for 3-D printing. Mass produced items are not due to the cost. Currently. A better application for tall boots would be 3-D scanning of the leg and foot, and then 3-D printing a last specific to the user so that the cobbler can create a boot perfect for the user, without all of those impossible to get correct measurements. 3-D printing is often used to create dies and molds just like that very effectively.

There are, however, custom 3-D printed shoes which take a scan of your foot and print a shoe bed or even orthotic just for you. Those have no prior expectations as to material quality/look attached to them within their tradition of use, therefore they are not compared against for example a tall leather boot that has been in use for hundreds of years within a specific sport.

There are also materials that have significant tensile strength, for items such as reins etc., but probably lack “hand” and again, to produce a flat strap of material using 3-D printing is not cost-effective with the current cost of machines, compared to producing leather strap. That’s not to say that you couldn’t develop a material that has the correct qualities, but there needs to be demand in order for that to happen. I don’t think I can see you demand happening with the reins for example because they are a straight strap of material, and customization of rains is not a demand.
What you have to understand about 3-D printing is that “complexity is free with 3-D printing”, as we say . It costs the same to produce an item of great simplicity as it does to produce something of great complexity, articulation etc. The latter items are extremely expensive to produce or impossible to produce by traditional means, and therefore 3-D printing is the fastest and cheapest way to create them.

So, when thinking about items that could be 3-D printed, the most cost-effective ones to produce are ones that are highly complex or unique and custom fit and need to be produced quickly.

[AnastasiaBeaverhousen]

I just saw an item on our local news that a doctor’s office is going to start using a 3d printer to make orthopedic casts. The fit will be specific to the patient.

they showed some examples of casts and they were lightweight and unusual looking.

[Xanthoria]

Are yes, that type of application has been in use for probably 15 years? It’s a great use for 3-D printing

[FuzNuz_Horse_Equipment]

Another Mechanical Engineer with 3D printing experience in this field. In my experience so far with 3D printing horse equipment. It actually tends to be the smaller complex items that go well with 3D printing. Brushes handles, combs, buckles, stirrups and horse boots are all about in the size range for a typical 3D printer bed (Approximately 6" x 6" x 6" for most small low cost desktop machines). The other important thing to consider in 3D printing horse equipment is the time to cost ratio.

Let’s take a 3D printed hoof pick as an example. Though this is a perfectly reasonable part to 3D print and there are several designs for them available on https://www.thingiverse.com/ to download for free. It is going to take about 1 hour to print and 15 minutes of setup if everything goes correctly. All of this effort produces a part that would have cost $2-$5 at the store for people in the US at least. You can get really fancy with the geometry and make exceptionally comfortable ergonomic grips that get you extra leverage, but they like all plastic hoof picks tend to chip over time and abrade slightly.

That being said, a typical desktop printer is going to require $300 and some time to setup and learn how to use. Printer filaments typically cost about $20 per kilogram, so you can quite a few parts done for fairly low cost once you make the initial investment and can keep the printer maintained adequately, however if you do all that and make 1-2 hoof picks for your 3-4 horses that last you for another 5 years, it is not terribly cost effective.

Paying someone else to 3D print your parts for you is highly variable in pricing. There are online services like shapeways.com where you can upload files and get the parts made, but these will cost more than doing it yourself to varying degrees depending on part complexity and material. This usually means that your ordinary $2 hoof pick is now $14 or so, but again 3D printing lets you do all sorts of fancy geometry for maximizing ergonomics.

Now, to take the opposite example, something like a horse hoof boot (Look up Easy Boots if you’ve not seen these before) which is quite expensive at about $60 or so each, and you obviously need 4 of them, so that’s $240 a set (roughly) for a item that will probably take a lot of wear and use and needs to be carefully fitted. This is an area where 3D printing has a lot more promise, as you can combine 3D scanning with photogrammetry (using videos from your phone) to measure your horse’s hoof and have a custom fitted boot created electronically to fit that particular hoof. These can be 3D printed at fairly low cost, but again only if you invest in your own 3D printer as outsourcing 3D printing is fairly expensive. So there is some savings potentially here.

So, in my opinion, when 3D printing horse equipment, at least with the common desktop machine, makes the most sense is when you are a multi-horse facility that will have sufficient equipment demand to warrant a 3D printing enough volume of parts to make it financially advisable to cover the front end costs and time required for printing the parts and maintaining the printer and learning the required technical information. 3D printing however can save you from having to go to the tack store for a variety of common parts and it is really nice to have 1 machine that can produce most of the other components required.

The other time 3D printing makes an enormous amount of sense is when you are in countries that do not have great access to high quality horse tack through the regular supply chains or are not realistically able to order things online. This lets you take your 3D printer and make whatever specific parts are required to suit the situation at hoof rather than relying on a reliable supply of pre-made horse supplies.

Also I could not complete this post without pointing out there seems to be a pretty big shortage of engineers working in this field, so I greatly appreciate seeing some other folks answering this question as well. This is a major part of the 3D printing question as well is what files and designs are currently available to the community. Horse engineers are pretty few and far between and though I have personally tried very hard to expand and share my designs and engineering work on thingiverse.com but I often find myself feeling like I fall on deaf ears. If anyone has recommendations on where I could go to discuss these kinds of topics or collaborate on projects it is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read my post,

FuzNuz

[phoebetrainer]

@Xanthoria

And the whole point of 3-D printing a saddle tree is that you can 3-D scan a horses back using a handheld 3-D scanner available now, generate a 3D file using that scan and if needed adjust the file so that it will fit a horse in motion. Print and install it. I mean, what do you do now with a standard saddle tree if it doesn’t fit the horse in motion? You adjust the flocking, or you start again with a new tree. Stands to reason that with 3-D printing you start with a tree that is much closer to what is needed then taking one off the rack, and if you know the horse has certain preferences for tree fit, you can adjust the digital file before you print it.

We already have the technology to sense high pressure areas underneath a saddle, and combining that with a 3-D printed tree that has built-in areas of softer material or higher flexibility could give a very interesting result.

Actually, there’s no reason this couldn’t be taken further. Scan the horse’s back at halt and each of the paces. Create a computer simulation of the appropriate saddle. Create a computer simulation of the rider. Run the simulation to find pressure areas or any issues - at any pace, when jumping, after 5 hours with the saddle on etc. Adjust the simulated saddle (or create a programme that adjusts it appropriately), and ultimately you get a saddle that has a high chance of fitting that horse. Then the horse and the rider might not like it!!!

[Xanthoria]

Yes! Cost would be high at first but so is training people to fit saddles and make trees.

[phoebetrainer]

@Xanthoria

Yes! Cost would be high at first but so is training people to fit saddles and make trees.

Not to mention the cost of trying lots of different saddles, thinking they fit, only to find that after using them for a number of hours, they cause pressure areas. I’m really surprised, that with the money that goes into horses and tack, a decent computer simulator for the best saddle fit hasn’t yet been developed. The more people who used it, the cheaper it would become - and the more people who used it, the more accurate it would become.