3D printing

Vajrayana Arts and Crafts

Ngakpa Ögyen Dorje, from Finland, is one of the marvellous bZo-pa / Craft-Artists of the Aro gTér Lineage of the Nyingma Tradition. He specialises in the creation of 3D printing prototypes, including highly detailed phurbas and statues.

The 3D printed prototypes are made from very fine steel powder that is formed layer by layer with a binding substance. When the steel powder form is ready, it is taken to a forge where it is heated together with fine bronze powder. There the object goes through an infusion process which replaces the binding substance with bronze, creating a full metal product, that has 60% concentration of steel and 40% bronze. The design of the phurba is made on a computer with digital sculpting and design processes.

Bhutanese phurba replica

This is a replication of a phurba that Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche gave to Ngak'chang Rinpoche

“"In 1976 I was given a wonderful wooden Bhutanese phurba by Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche. The phurba is wonderful of itself — but alarmingly wonderful because Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche used it in his own practice whilst he was in Bhutan.
Our student Ngakpa Ögyen Dorje has taken numerous photographs of this astonishing phurba and had put enormous effort and time into the possibility of making 3D printed versions of it. These are exact copies of the original Bhutanese phurba of Kyabjé Künzang Dorje Rinpoche."”
―Ngak'chang Rinpoche