What can you make using a 3-D Printing??

What can you make using a 3-D Printing??

I can join a new venture that just bought one..

Cost is free..

Join up, you will be on the forefront of a big thing

Many things It does depend on the printer. Such is the advancement in this technology any printer is soon outdated.

The real skill is the doing the 3D cad file that is to be printed.

There are several threads on 3D printing here on the forum.

Open to any one..

Certain aspects of Maker Space, such as an introductory 3-D printing course, could help people take advantage of new technologies, .

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/article_228766bc-5328-11e3-9b07-001a4bcf6878.html

What can you make using a 3-D Printing??

I can join a new venture that just bought one..

Cost is free..

Prosthetic limbs, hands and fingers included.

Saw it in the newspaper last week

A visit to a restoration shop by our car club revealed this gem. The emblem in hand was created by 3-D printing at a cost well below finding and restoring an original. The trick is have someone with the skills to draw the item up.If I remember correctly the material is a combination of stainless steel with a bronze ally which explains the coloration on the piece.

I made a gearshift knob that is not available anywhere using a 3 D Printer. I can use Autocad and was going to take it to a machine shop that aslo does parts in plastic but a friend suggested a 3 D printer. Cost was much less then getting it made the traditional way. Black Bakelite was the original and I made it from a hard black substance. Drilling, tapping and a little buffing when done and it was good to go.

That brings up a point. Are parts being reproduced in Bakelite?

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A visit to a restoration shop by our car club revealed this gem. The emblem in hand was created by 3-D printing at a cost well below finding and restoring an original. The trick is have someone with the skills to draw the item up.If I remember correctly the material is a combination of stainless steel with a bronze ally which explains the coloration on the piece.

They may have made the foundry pattern using 3-D printing but they did not make the actual emblem that way. As far as I know 3-D printing only works with various plastics.

Here's a small piece, a carburetor throttle arm, that I made in plastic from a 3D CAD drawing (TurboCad Pro). A foundry then made a silicone rubber female mold from it, made 30 wax copies, and investment cast the parts in silicon-bronze. I had to do the finish machining and get zinc plating done.

Shapeways.com did the 3D printing. Plastic parts are fairly cheap: $16 for mine. However, they will also do parts in metal. In fact, they can print with 420 stainless steel powder coated with a little adhesive. The part is then infused with molten bronze to make it completely dense and strong, about 40% bronze. It isn't especially cheap at $20-$25 per ounce, but you can get real metal parts made this way, directly from a CAD model. If you want parts in solid silver, they will print directly in wax, then they investment cast it in silver for you - good for making one-off jewelry.

If you want some script trim for a project, Shapeways has a material they call Alumide, which is a mixture of aluminum powder and plastic. It comes out a little grainy, but can be sanded and polished to look like fairly shiny metal. It doesn't get like good chrome and might not stand up to the weather, but it's fun stuff. I did make a piece of Alumide script for a friend, perhaps a little tongue-in-cheek.

Hard to believe someone would put a glued together powdered metal script on a Mercedes 300 sl when a perfectly good and platable copy could have been made by any competent foundry.

Hard to believe someone would put a glued together powdered metal script on a Mercedes 300 sl when a perfectly good and platable copy could have been made by any competent foundry.

AMEN to that !

3D or additive manufacturing is a great tool in the tool box. What can you make? technically, anything. What can you make that is cost effective? that is a different question. 3D or AM works for these subset of parts in the manufactured parts total set: complex parts/assemblies - including those obsolete parts or parts that are SO complex they cannot be made by conventional techniques....., parts that can be produced using superior materials - say superalloys rather than carbon or low-alloy steels, and replacement/refurbiushed parts - building up broken or worn parts.

Weldmetal build-up is - technically -additive manufacturing and falls into the 'class.'

powder bed and blown powder are the two current leading techniques. The latter is 'faster' but requires post build machining to final dimension. The former can produce highly intricate designs though material properties are not good. powder metal QA/QC is critical. is finish critical? typically includes post-grow work -classic machining. But things are changing, metals patent set to expire in a year or so, etc.

One can make amazingly complex plastic models for investment or cast parts.

Then there is the intellectual properties issues - for old or obsolete parts - less critical - for newer parts.......hhhmmmmmmm.......

It is changing the paradigm.

I hope to get in on this ...

I will take lights and rare parts and Have a little bit of fun..

What can you make using a 3-D Printing??.

The possibilities are really exciting.

3D printing is in it's infancy. I see a time, in the very near future, when many small items, replacement parts for virtually all the things we use around the house will be printed. You will go online, download the software, for a fee, and go to Kinko's where they will print it. Later on, as the technology gets cheaper and the materials become more varied you will print these things at home, just as easily as you print written pages right now. Imagine going to a wedding or some event and you don't have a tie that you like. In a few minutes, you could print one that would be indistinguishable from a store bought, traditional fabric item. Yes, the paradigm is changing

My wife is buying stock, OVNO & DDD. I hope it work out!

My daughters school has one of these 3d printers , they have a project to design a rubber band race car with it . I think I am more excited than her . Good luck in your venture

Right now, at least when it comes to auto restoration, 3-D printing is pretty much a solution in search of a problem. Great potential though, especially in pattern work.

Printing is the easy part. Much is written about the 3D printing process but less is written about economical ways of getting a digital file required for the printer if you do not have one and in cases of reproducing a rare part from an old car there won't be one. Getting a CAD drawing for an item I was investigating would have been majorly cost prohibitive. Checked into getting it 3D scanned which that process in itself is costly but would have been less expensive than having someone reverse engineer the part into a CAD drawing. 3D scanning itself sounds simple but its not black and white as there are many variables to obtaining the level of detail desired.

I was surprised that sources I checked for 3D printing did not offer scanning services or scanning with a high level of detail and there were far fewer sources who did 3D scanning on a professional level vs printing. 3D printers of various types are rapidly becoming common and less expensive these days but 3D scanning on the professional level not so much, and to me that's where a better money making opportunity is.

I remember reading somewhere that the GE Aircraft Engine Group is working at making blades & vanes using the 3D process. I am positive the article said they were of metal composition and came right off the printer. (not making a plastic / poly based mold for casting the metal parts) The article said the only limits were caused by the size of the printer. There are many intricate cooling passages inside the blades and vanes and 3D printing enabled the production of a one piece item. Much improved strength characteristics and reduced stress points over multi part items to be assembled and joined by other conventional (welding / brazing) or unconventional (laser weld) methods. It appears the items to be made by 3D printing will be limited by lack of imagination and limited ability to get digital files to tell the printer what to do. I agree that if anyone has opportunity to get into this technology they should jump in wholeheartedly!

Google Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) for interesting info on the process. Sounds fascinating but terrifyingly expensive.

This topic came up on another forum, i agree with the comments above. You kind of have to already be a great craftsman, and use 3d as a tool. For instance that 300sl emblem, should be molded and cast and cleaned up in wax for a foundry to use. The beauty is that you can add you shrinkage percentages into the file, in some cases the 3d print can almost be used as the master pattern.

We do all sorts of scanning, 3d models and printing at work so i have basically grown up around these machines. We have 3-4 diffenrent type of printing here. But remember in some case just cnc machining new parts may he quicker. All of it is just a tool for the craftsman.

There is an example of a fairly complex 3D printed casting shown here - http://theoldmotor.com/?p=128497.

This casting was made in Troy, Michigan by the ExOne company. They are pretty much the state of the art in rapid prototyping of castings.

You can also scan an original item using a handheld laser scanner and just wave it around all sides of the object you want to reproduce. You could do this with the 300sl emblem above, rather than creating totally from scratch in a CAD file. You can/may still need to use the CAD to adjust, alter or otherwise make to suit your specific needs but scanning eliminates the need to go from nothing to something.

This was from another post on this site in the Brush forums. It is very interesting.

http://3dprintingindustry.com/2014/1...912-brush-car/

I see the Swedish supercar builder Koenigsegg is printing a turbo-supercharger turbine housing with an internal spiral path. According to the video, very difficult to cast but doable, apparently easier to print. Note this is the driven side so not subjected to hot exh gas. Made of laser sintered stainless. The whole purpose is to combine in one unit a narrow, small volume path for quick spool-up with a larger, high volume path for high RPM work. There is a mechanical flap that cuts in at some preset value to select the appropriate path.

NASA is looking at launching a 3D printer into space to make spare parts.

NASA is looking at launching a 3D printer into space to make spare parts.

This actually just recently happened!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/11/30/367238642/to-boldly-go-where-no-3-d-printer-has-gone-before-yep-space

This is a horn button surround for a 34-36 Auburn. It is made of Bakelite they came in brown and black. Would this be a good candidate for a small run, say 20 of each color?

Anyone with a WAG on cost?

This is a horn button surround for a 34-36 Auburn. It is made of Bakelite they came in brown and black. Would this be a good candidate for a small run, say 20 of each color?

Anyone with a WAG on cost?

Will be very interesting to see if you actually get a price including engineering time and what material is recommended. We hear a lot about this new technology, admittedly fascinating, but I have yet to see an actual price on making something useful. Even the post earlier describing the recasting of a cylinder jug hedged by not including engineering costs.

Mr Restorer32, I did reply with my estimated engineering cost for a cylinder/jug on the other posting. Sorry if it looks like hedging, but my price really depends on what type of data I'm given to start with. One guy actually gave me a 2D CAD drawing to begin a casting job, and of course that can be quickly converted into 3D CAD.

I don't presently deal with plastic or bakelite reproduction parts. I hope someone else can help with the Auburn part.

Mr Restorer32,

Here is an actual price for a one-off reproduction crankcase for an early 4 cylinder T-Head engine, an aluminum casting made by 3D printed sand molds by ExOne in Troy, Michigan. Engineering included. $15,000

Final machining not included.

Lee