Want to make a lasting impression when networking? Obviously, 3D Printed Concrete Business Cards are the answer!

Back in 2012, a creative agency came up with a plan to reinvent the business card. On top of rectangles and squares, hard and soft edges, French company Murmure decided to make them out of concrete. One maker has finally taken this particularly memorable idea and documented the long 3D printed journey on Instructables.

Our maker, identified only as UCN, is an architect and urban designer—which suddenly makes the decision to print concrete cards a lot more understandable. Target groups for use as actual business cards pretty exclusively include artists, designers, and construction foremen. Nonetheless, what maker doesn’t want one of those?

“I set out to find a way to make real slim concrete ‘cards’ that would still be robust enough to take some moderate handling,” UCN explains. “I set myself the additional task of using my 3D Printer for all the non-concrete elements: printing the mould and even the reinforcements too!”

He started with molds 3D printed on an FDM machine at 90 x 50 x 2.5mm. The meshes were also 3D printed at a height of 0.5mm.

He used a mold-release spray before filling them with a concrete mix and leaving them to cure overnight. After 24 hours, the prototypes were demolded and left to cure for a further 24 hours (nobody said hand-making concrete business cards would be fast!).

After several attempts, UCN reaffirmed his suspicions that the originals were too thin. Furthermore, the unreinforced concrete proved way too fragile, and the diagonal mesh prototypes came out with chipped corners. In the end, he upped the thickness to 3.0mm.

How did it fair? Load tests showed it could hold 1000g before breaking, which is pretty good stats for a business card. Still, the maker promises to keep experimenting, perhaps by mixing fibers directly into the cement or using a silicone and cement mixture.

Find the instructions in here.