Hardened vs brass nozzles: when you actually need one
Abrasive filament destroys brass nozzles fast. Which filaments count, what hardened steel costs you in heat transfer, and when brass is still the right choice.
Brass is the default nozzle material because it conducts heat superbly and machines cleanly, which makes it cheap and good at the actual job. Its weakness is hardness: brass is soft, and anything abrasive in the filament will wear the orifice open.
What counts as abrasive
More filaments than people expect:
- Carbon fibre (PLA-CF, PETG-CF, nylon-CF) — the worst offender in common use.
- Glass fibre filled composites.
- Glow-in-the-dark — the phosphorescent particles are genuinely abrasive, which surprises people.
- Glitter and sparkle filaments.
- Wood, metal and stone fill — variable, but assume abrasive.
Plain PLA, PETG, ABS, ASA and TPU are not abrasive. A brass nozzle printing those will last a very long time.
How fast does brass actually wear?
Faster than most people believe. Continuous printing with a carbon-fibre filament can visibly open up a brass nozzle within a few spools — sometimes within one. The failure is gradual and sneaky: the hole widens, extrusion width drifts, walls thicken, dimensional accuracy slips, and you spend an evening recalibrating a printer that is mechanically fine. If your prints have quietly got worse and you have been printing something filled, check the nozzle first.
The options above brass
- Hardened steel. The usual answer. Cheap, widely available, survives abrasives well. The trade-off is thermal conductivity — steel conducts heat considerably worse than brass, so you may need to print 5–10 °C hotter to get the same flow.
- Ruby and diamond tipped. Excellent wear resistance with brass-like heat transfer, at many times the price. Justified if you print abrasives constantly.
- Plated copper / brass with a wear coating. A reasonable middle ground where available.
The honest recommendation
Keep a brass nozzle in the printer for everyday PLA and PETG, and keep one hardened steel nozzle in the drawer to swap in when you print anything filled. That is a couple of pounds of insurance against a slow, hard-to-diagnose decline in print quality.
If you print carbon-fibre filament routinely, just fit hardened steel and leave it there. The slight temperature bump is a smaller nuisance than replacing brass nozzles on a schedule you keep forgetting.
Do not forget the rest of the path
Abrasive filament wears everything it touches, not just the nozzle. Extruder gears and — on Bowden setups — the PTFE liner also take a beating. If you have been printing composites for a while and something feels off, the nozzle is the first suspect but not the only one. See PTFE tubing and when to replace it.
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Last reviewed 10 September 2026.