There are a variety of different recoater types that are used in metal additive manufacturing. The operator has the choice between hard and soft recoaters, depending on the generated material and the part geometries as well as on the various requirements of different industries and standards.
Besides buildability and good recoating quality, material properties and part density are important factors in any application.The values given in EOS material datasheets are usually based on the standard configuration, i.e. hard recoating. There are several cases in which not only the properties of a part but also its buildability are important factors. In order to serve the requirements of buildability, blades made of other materials, such as carbon brushes or elastomers, are available in addition to standard hard recoater blades. 

This whitepaper provides insights to:

• The influence of soft and hard recoater blades in metal additive manufacturing
• Recoated powder bed density with EOS MaragingSteel MS1
• The mechanical properties of additively manufactured AlSi10Mg, MS1 & Ti6Al4V