In a hurry to mow the lawn? Quickly print a lawnmower

KEMPTON Park’s very own genius inventor and mechanical engineer, Hans Fouche, has created the world’s first ever 3D printed lawnmower.

Fouche has set a world record with his creation that took just nine hours to complete, using his super fast Cheetah 3D printer (also his very own invention).

Unlike ordinary printers that are much slower and take hours upon hours to print an object, Fouche’s Cheetah printer takes up to half the time to complete the job because it uses a larger nozzle for the printing.

Where ordinary printers have nozzles that are about 0.5mm in diameter, the Cheetah is double that size, hence making the printing faster.

“The Cheetah printer took me about six months to build. I basically needed something faster and more realistic to work with, especially when attempting to print larger objects such as the lawnmower,” Fouche explained.

And it doesn’t end there: Fouche has also printed a vacuum cleaner (which took him four hours to print), school bags, vases, as well as shoes, which can be printed within an hour and can literally be worn.

“I collaborated with a shoemaker in Kempton CBD, Mr Azuka, who helped me complete the shoes by adding soles and the material to cover the shoe and make it wearable. And what’s also nice about this is that the shoes can be completely custom made to fit a person’s foot size and to suit a customer’s taste in design.”

The former Hoërskool Kemptonpark pupil also owns a shop on Kempton Road, Fouche Chocolate, which designs and prints 3D chocolate decorations for cakes. He started the business 19 years ago – showing his vast experience in 3D printing.

Even though he has been experimenting with 3D printing for many years now, he started using it while working for the Brabham Formula One team in the UK 20 years ago as chief aerodynamicist, building model Formula 1 racing cars to be tested for speed in a wind tunnel.

Fouche only started using ABC plastic granules two years ago.

“The reason I started using ABS plastic is because it is much cheaper and still very good and strong to create objects. The plastic material makes it much more affordable to produce many objects, because using material such as titanium steel costs thousands of rands to manufacture.”

There’s clearly no stopping Fouche’s brilliant mind, which is always thinking of new things to create.

For now he will work on improving his lawnmower, testing it over and over again and re-building and re-designing it accordingly until he is satisfied with it.

“I also want to collaborate with industrial designers to help give my projects a more modern and ‘sellable’ look, especially with the school bags. Right now everything I design is just basic and functional, now we need to make them more modern and nice; you know, more cool,” Fouche concluded, referring to the children’s school bags.