Nylon polyamide is the workhorse engineering material. It combines very high toughness, impressive fatigue life and excellent wear behaviour in a material that still prints as easily as PLA once it has been properly dried. Where PLA snaps, nylon flexes and survives.
Nylon is self-lubricating, which means it runs against metal, itself and other polymers with very little friction and no need for a grease. That single property is why nylon is the default material for gears, pulleys, bushings, hinges and any moving assembly — you can build a functioning mechanism without a single lubricant.
It handles heat far better than any standard material, staying rigid past 100 °C in most grades. The one thing you must respect is moisture: nylon absorbs water from the air, and wet filament prints weak and stringy. We dry every spool before use and print in a controlled chamber.
