This is a typical example of a project that was doomed to fail. In the past I never attempted to start an idea like this at all or quit too early because I felt stupid trying it anyway. With 3D printing you can afford failed attempts and these turned out to be very valuable to me. Keep on experimenting guys!

"The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down. " Id say documenting it on video is just as good as writing it down!

Brilliant! At first I thought this was an April fool's video I had missed. Disclaimer: I know very little about 3D printing and materials science; but I do love licorice. (As do most Danes.) Anyway. Other comments have been mentioning the melting point of sugar, and suggesting even higher temperatures. I think this is missing an important property of licorice laces. Candies are generally divided into two categories: hard and soft. Hard candies are mostly sugar in a crystalline form with flavoring, very hard and brittle. This includes caramelised sugar. To make soft candy, you have to mix in water. To prevent the moist result from being a sticky mess, binder additives are added, such as gum arabic, gelatin, and flour or starch. Controlling the water content is essential for getting the correct softness. The French cooking guy Alex has some videos where he attempts making dried pasta, which is just wheat flour and water. It is probably a similar process that is used in manufacturing licorice. Starting out with a very soft paste of higher water content, then extruding the lace and immediately drying it down to the final water content level and then coating with wax to prevent it from drying further until consumption. By heating it beyond 100°C you simply dry it out more, making it a hard and brittle substance, like a dry and crumbling cake. You either have to start with the "wet" paste and calibrate the heating process to dry it to the right water content, or just above and then "harden" the finished print in an oven. Or use a candy that is more thermoplastic, either by using something different (soft caramel might work), or by somehow _adding_ water to the licorice to make it softer. And it is probably completely counterproductive to heat it beyond 100°C. For hair removal, there is a method called "sugaring or sugar waxing", which basically uses a lump of caramel with just enough moisture to be kneaded like a dough and stick just enough when heated to 45-50°C I guess. (Fairly hot, but not too hot to handle or apply to the skin.) My guess is that this could be in the ballpark of working temperature for licorice paste also. Thermoplasticising may be easier with fat-based confectionary like chocolate, but chocolate of course isn't elastic, it just becomes liquid when heated, and will act more like a resin.

Hey man, here's an idea for you! If you manage to pull it off, you'll revolutionize 3d printing industry. Make an extruder that would use chopped up plastic (old prints or plastic bottles perhaps) instead of filament. I imagine there would be a small container that would hold a small amount of molten plastic, and a "piston" of some sort that would regulate the pressure inside it. It really would be a game changer, plus it would help to recycle

OMG it was licorice! you are a freaking mad lad! Great progress! Keep it up! I know this frustration, going through it myself on a project! There is light at the end of the tunnel, now let's hope it is not another train coming right at us LOL

I feel like this is a challenge now; SOMEONE has to do it. Seems frustrating as hell, and mostly useless short of bragging rights, so 100% valid in moving on. (Currently struggling to put a 3D Printer Kit together myself, let alone *design a custom extruder* ! )

I love your design and your efforts! I just subscribed and interested in what you come up with for the future! Something I thought about today and something you might want to explore, is methods to save electricity when using your FDM printer. Maybe you can come up with a battery powered from solar to directly powers the printer components, change the heating elements out for something more efficient, experiment with enclosures and see if you can save by storing heat, etc. If anyone can figure it out, I believe you can!

That extruder design looks awesome. Will probably make one myself

Love your videos man! Always interesting!

Great video, love the experiments!

Ever since I got my 3D printer, I have wondered the same thing about "Strawberry Bootlaces". They seem like they'd have the right physical properties. But I've never dared to try it.

Nice work, keep going you mad lad!

Jon, try Haribo Lakritzschnecken. At least, they nicely split in two seperate strings! If that fails, you may consider (guess what? ) Kartoffelsalat or Bratwurst! 😁 Both will not be suitable for extruding but you knew that with licorice in the first place! Keep on trying!

Success or fail makes no difference to me, I'm here to enjoy the show. Thanks for all the wonderful edutainment. Sorry I missed you at MRRF022.

I just love your videos ,even stupid or not ,it's just so awesome ❤️ love your ideas ,the crazier the better

It almost looks like you weren't hot enough when it was extruding with it coming out the sides. It looked like it was sheering the outside layer of the licorice to force it through hole like a reamer. I would suspect your temp should be closer to 185 C since that's what sugar melts at

As I'm Dutch, and love licorice, I had high hopes for this, I'm sure you'll think of a working solution some day!

Thank you for your great work ;)

We're sorry to put you through the pain and effort, but in the end we are glad we did!

This is why the internet exists. I'm seriously thankful you gave this a shot!

Oh wow, it's a great idea! Just like the Rim... You'll succeed

perhaps you could get the licorice out of the ptfe tube using traditional filament and a Bowden extruder where the regular filament, with a flat end would act as a piston.

great conclusion! "stupid" ideas is right path to experience and new ideas, Thanks for this instructive idea! 👏

Great experiment and I love your approach towards devopment! Funny thing i thought i would mention: My uncle actually extrude silicone hoses and plastics with an old extruding pellet machine, He has also made licorice with this machine with he's own recipe! maybe you'll need to have the licorice filament in a "raw liqorice"-state before it heats up and solidifies/crystalize?

this is perfect, i seen the tweet where you went to the appie for the drop and they where in the bonus :P

I love the concept. I think freezing the licorice with liquid nitrogen would add a lot of fun to the video and maybe make it work better

Nice try ! Thx for sharing !

I love your videos, so authentic and it's so good to see that not every idea works out (but it's still worth trying :) ) (PS: the rolls used to be separatable, I have many childhood memories of that, and how are they supposed to be eaten if not separated ^^)

Hi Jón this is Andres from Peru, we met at MRRF this year, now I can confirm you DO like licorice, greetings from Peru and keep up doing this crazy content!!

love licorice, never had the salted kind, will have to try it. not a fan of salted caramel, but it would probably go with licorice better.

"we choose to do these things... Not because they are easy, but because they are hard '

I love double salt licorice!

Your approach is great my Holland friend. You should have different goal though, like improving that extruder of yours in general. Printing with 0,6mm and 0,4mm Nozze (.6 for course infill and .4 for fine details) or creating a water cooler with an Alphacool Eisbaer ... something like that =)

Very nice

Bowden tubing is also used in pneumatik actuaters

Prakties en lekker

what if you cool the licorice down before inserting it? will it not get stiffer and not break so easy

Liked for the bee roll joke 😅 Great job, keep it up!

Is there a bigger nozzle you can try? It seemed to roll ok through the system without the nozzle?

Sehr sehr geil! Die Idee is super Interresant! Leider hat man mal Rückschläge! Aber du machst das genau richtig! Man lernt solange bis alle Finger gleich lang sind! Weiter so!!!

Here you are answering the questions no one knew they needed to ask.

I guess this is the optimal situation where the phrase "failure is always an option" makes the best sense. It seemed plausible under perfect conditions (or maybe with a significant amount of alcohol), but perfect is probably not something easily achieved in something like this. At least you got some ideas out of it.

Jon, this is different idea to running though a standard i3 style printer as your doing. Try an extruder that works like a concrete pump. Using gravity initially to feed the drups in a hopper that goes to a pump head. Then you can control flow rate without risk of blowing out of gaps etc. I guess a pellet extruder would work… but where’s the fun in that….

If you can design and print a small (screw extruder) using resin 3d printer, It may help to print many other materials too.

American here. I love licorice.

try Djungelvrål, in a pelletextruder... thanks for trying

screw extruder might work. similar to those used in pellet extruders.

this reminds me of the drop from the old days at grandmas which was harder and which i sometimes put in the microwave to soften

Does licorice nicely melts at all? Or just desintegrates due to the heat, and gets lumpy like scrambled eggs

Hope you might give it another attempt.

Even failure is a result, its up to you to remain positive. Way to think outside the box

wonder if keepin the licorice in the fridge for a bit first would help

Licorice laces =)) Probably the dutchest thing ever.

So underrated

O ja heerlijk meneer drop is erg lekker. Ik woon in Deerfield Wisconsin, nu ga ik ook veeter drop printen😏🤣

Did you try a 1mm nozzle for less pressure?

You should try these experiments with nozzle size greater than .4mm

use a heated screw extruder, similar to injection molding

May have been pertinent to measure if it has a melting point that is usable on the 3D printer. I know the extruder grip problem, had to use an idler assembly for the soft TPU I have that I can back tension way off to where it has almost a feather light bite into the filament.

Wow that is super cool? Where did u find that heater core at? Interesting

I think this would work well with one of those screw extruders. I bet there's a lot of potential for candy printing that way, with this sort of meltable gummy candy at least. Is licorice the only soft candy that melts?

Can you do multi color printing, though?

The videotitle was all you had to know, in order to figure out who posted this masterpiece!

what nozzle diameter was that? How about starting with a bigger one?

Maybe bicycle pump can do it with a bicycle Valve and some fittings from old bicicle tube.

i don't like licorice... but you could try cutting the licorice to pieces and use a palette extruder(auger driven), either on your hotend or to extrude filament from it... that way you could also try different licorice brands, to see if they have different printing properties (hardness, temperature, etc.) might be worth a try

Would it be worth trying this with red liquorice laces? (they aren't actually liquorice) as they are a bit tougher than actual liquorice and may be able to through without breaking and gumming up. Might be worth considering? Great videos by the way, I've just discovered your videos, greetings from the UK!

Whahah! Nice work man! But eh... Liquorice printing part 2: Pellet extruder! I did some experiments with a pellet extruder and flexibles and it worked really well. I can't imagine it not working with liquorice. Ene, je doet echt gare shit! Heerlijk om van te genieten dus houd er vooral niet mee op!

love the classic old kitchen, perfect place to drink beers with friends and make borrelhapjes

I like licorice

should have tried to put the licorice tube in the output of a bowden machine, then used filament (plastic) on the extruder to push the licorice out of the tube

Needs more pressssurreeeeeeeee

hm... Did you try the omnia drop? Maybe a heated "paste extruder" could work for licorice. Anyways, looking forward to the next video ;)

I wonder if you could use a heated flask with the licorice inside it that was pressured with air than a solenoid valve before the heated nozzle to print it. the air pressure would control the flow rate. Similar to a jewellery wax injector

Whatcha doing today, dude? Oh not much just chilling by the oven waiting for my tubing so I can 3d print licorice

Maybe corn starch for a lubricant for the 'filament'

Now the liquorice runout sensor

Man ! everybody knows that mozzarella works better than Licorice Laces for 3d printing ! :D

Years ago they had more sugar content and used to pull like cable, less sugar content and are now less "tactile "

I work in a food factory and last time some ask if it is positive to print with are products. So send info about food and it will come out soon. Mabye also need call lookoloop

o Zé Neto e Cristiano tá diferente. manja muito de impressora 3D.

Idea: instead of a filament extruder, use a screw feed as if you’re feeding plastic pellets into an injection moulding machine?

Ah yes, drop. It's very funny that acquired tastes are so "black and white" basically. If you didn't learn to like it, it's disgusting. :) I love some dubbel zout, could find it in Sweden and Denmark as well, but when I moved to New Zealand, man was I missing it. I found 1 little, old bag in a shop, meant for the Dutch that moved there in the 50's. hahaha Super original to 3D print it, but hey, it's what I'm almost expecting now in these videos.

Maybe you can get it out of the teflon tube with compressed air.

Pin for fellow Dutch speaking 3d printing experimenting person?(maybe use dual belts on the feeding mechanism)

1:25 "I couldn't find a datasheet on this" at first I thought it was a joke, but then the "so I don't know the shore hardness or the melting point" and now I'm not so sure 🤷

Maybe try melting it to more of a liquid goo in a container and extrude like you did the water

the haribo ones can be stripped apart

ik denk dat je hiermee wel heb beweze dat een drop printer mogelijk is, ik denk dat het grootste probleem de extrusion en het pad van extruder naar hotend. Mischien zou het mogelijk zijn met een van die chocolade printers of andere voedsel printers als je er aan sleutelt

My take away is I need some dubbel zout coins. Best thing is no one steals my licorice :D

I know it's not really important info, but in german we call the rolls "Lakritz-Schnecken", or licorice snails, which imho perfectly describes the taste (I'm joking, of course; real snails taste way better :P) Also, while it might sound like a stupid idea, it's not that far in the past that people would have laughed at you if you proposed the idea of turning corn into plastic, and yet here we are, PLA being the most common filament we use ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ What I mean to say is, just because it sounds ridiculous, that alone shouldn't be the reason not to try something, y'know.

a first, 3D printing licorice :D Maby this is a job for a pellet extruder?

Not to give you a terrible idea... But if you create a vat that holds the licorice and heats it until it's liquid form... Then you pressurize that vat to push it out of the nozzle... Similar to your SLA paste FDM printing really... Maybe you could print licorice and any candy. ;)

Briljante content 😂

The most delicious of failures! I wouldn't even be mad lol

Here's a stupid idea: to print with sugar. Sugar has a melting temperature of around 190 - 200 degrees. Surely you can find a solution to feed the print head with sugar. you are the most inventive and creative 🧠 youtuber I have followed. How hard can it be? A system with a worm 🪱, a lot of sweat, nerves and frustrations, but it will surely work. It's like printing with pellets and you will get very sweet prints. 🍬🍬

Should have used salmiakki Best yuro licorice

The licorice has been extruded before you got it. It went through the process to obtain that shape. What you need to do is start with the raw material that the manufacture used in order to create the extruded result they deliver.

Omnia drop 🤣

Misschien had het toch ‘topdrop’ moeten zijn haha